An employee claimed that her dismissal was invalid because it was partly due to her exercising her right to freedom of expression. She had emailed the president of her organisation to inform him of requests for reimbursement of the director’s travel expenses, suggesting that these expenses might be viewed negatively by the organisation’s supervisory bodies or the URSSAF (the organisation responsible for collecting social security contributions from employers and employees in France to finance the social security system).
The Court of Cassation rejected the appeal. It found that the letter of dismissal did not criticise the employee for exercising her freedom of expression. The employee was dismissed, not for expressing criticism of the director’s expenses, but for showing disloyalty by addressing the organisation’s president directly without first consulting with her line manager. Therefore, this behaviour did not constitute an exercise of her freedom of expression.
