French Courts consider that there is a strict boundary between individuals’ private and professional lives. In principle, a personal matter cannot give rise to disciplinary action. This has been ruled in the following situations:
- smoking in a cabin during a cruise organised by the employer;
- possession and consumption of narcotics by an employee in his personal vehicle, observed by the police on a public road, unrelated to the obligations arising from the employment contract;
- one employee giving another employee the political programme of the first employee’s party, after a work event (a company awards ceremony) in which both were participating, outside of working hours and outside the workplace.
These facts, which relate to the employee’s private life, where they are free to exercise their religious, philosophical or political beliefs, cannot constitute a breach of the obligations arising from the employment contract, and dismissal on disciplinary grounds were therefore not justified.
A ruling of 10 September 2025 takes the same view with regard to an employee working as a service agent – and not as an educator, the Court expressly notes – for a child protection association. The employee had taken the initiative to visit the hospital to which a minor in the care of the association had been admitted. The employee gave her a Bible and had, in the past, received warnings regarding similar actions.
The Court ruled that she could not be dismissed for giving the child a Bible, since these events took place outside the employee’s working hours and place of work and did not relate to the performance of her professional duties.
Furthermore, dismissal on disciplinary grounds for events relating to an employee’s personal life and the exercise of their freedom of religion is discriminatory (and not only unfair) and therefore void.
