France: details on the use of short-time working for companies affected by the war in Ukraine

To go alongside the French government’s economic and social resilience plan, presented on 16 March, the labour ministry has published a series of questions and answers on short-time working (activité partielle [AP]) and long-term short-time working (activité partielle de longue durée [APLD]) aimed at companies that may see their activities slowed down or brought to a halt due to the economic fallout of the invasion of Ukraine. This text details the conditions for deploying these two measures, for which “employees with an employment contract under French law employed by Russian, Belarusian or Ukrainian companies established in France” are eligible. In the case of seconded and expatriate employees, companies must prioritise their repatriation before resorting to short-time working. They may only have access to these schemes if repatriation is impossible due to the geopolitical situation. In the event that the staff in question are repatriated, employers may utilise the PA and APLD schemes if they are immediately reclassified. Finally, to be eligible for the short-time working measure, the decision to close operations must not have been voluntary. This is not a condition for access to the long-term short-time working scheme.