An employee who reports moral harassment cannot be dismissed on that ground ; a dismissal that refers to the report is void, and where the dismissal letter cites the report, that ground alone renders the dismissal void, without the court needing to examine the other grounds. The only limit is the employee’s bad faith, which the employer must prove, and bad faith is narrowly defined : it can result only from the employee’s knowledge that the reported facts were false, not from the mere fact that they were not established.
In this case, an employee had reported harassment by a subordinate who sat on the works council (comité social et économique, CSE). An investigation entrusted to an outside firm concluded that the facts were not made out, and the employee was then dismissed, the dismissal letter referring to her report.
The Court of Cassation upheld the finding that the dismissal was void. The investigation report, while ruling out harassment, had noted a failure to sanction violent conduct by the accused employee verbally, and the employer had not shown that the complainant knew the facts she reported were false. An internal investigation concluding that no harassment occurred is not, therefore, enough on its own to establish bad faith.
Cass. soc., 10 June 2026, no. 24-20.871
