Prior to several rulings of the Court of Cassation of 13 September 2023, and in accordance with the former legal provisions :
– periods during which performance of the employment contract was suspended due to illness of non-occupational origin were not treated as periods of actual work and therefore did not give rise to paid leave, unless there were provisions to this effect in the collective bargaining agreement
– employees off work due to an accident or illness of occupational origin could acquire paid holiday entitlements, but only for an uninterrupted period of one year.
In a series of rulings handed down on 13 September 2023, the Court of Cassation made a complete U-turn, ruling that French law did not comply with European Union law, which guarantees all workers an annual period of paid leave.
Given the far-reaching consequences of this reversal of case law, legislative action was required. This has now been achieved with the publication of law no. 2024-364 of 22 April 2024, article 37 of which relating to paid holidays came into force on 24 April.
The main provisions adopted are as follows:
- Acquiring paid leave while off work
– Non-work-related sick leave
From now on, employees who are off work, even for non-occupational reasons, are entitled to paid leave. However, unless a more favorable agreement has been reached, the number of days a sick employee can earn is limited to 2 working days per month (as a reminder, an employee normally earns 2.5 working days of paid holiday per month). The legislator is therefore strictly applying European law, which limits the sick employee’s obligation to acquire paid leave to 4 weeks (24 working days) per year.
The rules for calculating holiday pay have been adapted accordingly: for the purposes of calculating holiday pay in accordance with the one-tenth rule, absences due to non-work-related accident or illness are deemed to have given rise to remuneration based on the establishment’s working hours, but this remuneration is taken into account up to a limit of 80%.
In a ruling dated January 21, 2026 (No. 24-22.228), the Labor Chamber of the Court of Cassation clarified the method for calculating the 24-working-day limit that an employee may accrue for sick leave due to a non-work-related illness. The Court of Cassation clarified that this limit applies per accrual period. Thus, unused and carried-over leave must not be taken into account when determining this 24-working-day limit, which must be assessed separately for each reference period.
– Time off work due to an accident at work or occupational illness
Employees off work for professional reasons continue to earn 2.5 working days of paid holiday per month, but with the novelty that this entitlement is now unlimited in time.
- Employer’s duty to inform
At the end of any period of absence from work, regardless of its duration, the employer must, within one month of resuming work, inform the employee by any means that provides a date certain, and in particular the pay slip:
– the number of days of leave available
– the date until which these days may be taken.
This information is a prerequisite for limiting the time during which sick employees can take leave after their return. Pay slips will therefore have to include new headings to enable employers to comply.
- Rules governing the deferral of paid leave for sick employees
Two hypotheses are to be distinguished:
1. An employee who, as a result of illness or accident, is unable to take the full amount of leave during the leave-taking period, benefits from a deferral period of fifteen months after returning to work in order to be able to use the leave. This fifteen-month period runs from the date on which the employee is informed of his or her holiday entitlement as described above. At the end of this period, any paid leave not taken will be definitively lost.
2. In the event that the employment contract has been suspended for at least one year, the 15-month carry-over period for paid leave earned during the work stoppage will run from the end of the reference period in which it was earned. In practice, this measure limits the accumulation of holiday earned during a period of absence from work that lasts for several years.
years. Thus, an employee absent from work from 01.06.2024 to 31.08.2025 will be able to take the leave earned during the period from 01.06.2024 to 31.05.2025 before 01.09.2026 and that earned between 01.06.2025 and 31.08.2025 before 01.09.2027, provided that the employer has informed the employee of his rights.
If the employee’s absence continues until 31.08.2026, the employee will permanently lose the leave earned from 01.06.2024 to 31.05.2025 and will be able to take that earned between 1.06.2025 and 31.05.2026 before 01.09.2027, and that earned between 1.06.2026 and 31.08.2026 before 01.09.2028.
- Retroactive application and deadline for taking action
Subject to court decisions having the force of res judicata, or more favorable contractual stipulations, the new provisions applicable to non-work-related stoppages are applicable for the period running from 1.12.2009 to the date of entry into force of the law of 22 April 2024. However, an employee’s request may not relate to more than 24 working days of paid leave for the same reference period during which his contract was suspended, taking into account the days he had already acquired.
The period within which the employee has to assert his rights depends on whether or not he was present in the company when the law came into force.
In the first case, a two-year limitation period has been introduced. Any legal action must therefore be brought within two years of the law coming into force.
In the second case, the ordinary limitation period for wage claims applies, i.e. three years from the date of termination of the employment contract.
In the case of employees affected by the new provisions relating to work stoppages of occupational origin, the ordinary law limitation period of three years applies.