the Court of Cassation rules on the “Macron scale”

Since 2017, the “Macron scale” has strictly regulated the compensation that justice grants to a dismissed employee. The Court of Cassation rules on Wednesday May 11 on the possibility for judges to free themselves from this very restrictive grid. The judgment of the Court of Cassation must fall at 2 p.m. He must put an end to a legal guerrilla war that has lasted since this ordinance of September 22, 2017 was introduced.

This text establishes a scale that judges must strictly apply in the event of dismissal without real and serious cause. A grid based solely on the seniority of the employee in the company. A scale that goes from one month to 20 months of wages. Example: an unfairly dismissed employee who has three years of seniority may in no case have more than four months’ salary. But some courts have refused to apply this scale.

Employment tribunals but also courts of appeal, nine in all, have ruled that in some cases we could go beyond the scale. And repair the damage suffered on a case-by-case basis. These judges rely in particular on a convention of the International Labor Organization which says that in the event of unjustified dismissal, judges must grant adequate compensation, appropriate reparation…

In French law, it is the Court of Cassation which sets the rules applicable by all other jurisdictions. This means that his judgment is therefore highly anticipated. She must in particular rule on a decision of the Paris Court of Appeal, also very followed, on the case of a 55-year-old woman with less than four years of seniority in her company. The Paris Court of Appeal had ruled that the allowances provided for by the scale were not sufficient to compensate for the damage that this employee had suffered.

The very existence of the scale is not likely to be called into question. The 2017 ordinance received the approval of the Constitutional Council and the Court of Cassation has already ruled favorably on this point. What is at stake is the ability of judges to assess in concrete terms, on a case-by-case basis, compensation for damages. And therefore to deviate, when the circumstances so require, from the “Macron scale”, when it will be demonstrated that the damage suffered by the employee is not fully compensated by the compensation received.