In a ruling dated 10 September 2025, the Court of Cassation ruled that periods of paid leave must be included when calculating weekly overtime (Cass. Soc., 10 September 2025, No. 23-14.455). In accordance with European law, the Court recognised the employee’s right to overtime pay for the entire week, to guarantee the effectiveness of the right to paid annual leave.
However, this decision was limited to the weekly calculation of working time. Should this method be extended to situations where an employee’s working time is assessed over a longer period rather than on a weekly basis?
A ruling handed down on 7 January 2026 answered this question in the affirmative, stating that an employee who was partially on paid leave during the two reference weeks was entitled to the overtime pay they would have received had they worked for the entire two weeks.
