The final version of France’s “emergency draft bill to deal with the COVID-19 epidemic” definitively adopted on 22 March 2020

As a reminder, the first draft (commented in Gide’s Client Alert dated 20 March 2020) was presented to the Council of Ministers on 18th March 2020 by Prime Minister Édouard Philippe.

The Government is authorized to issue by way of ordinance, within three months of the publication of the law, provisional measures of economic emergency, as detailed in the draft bill.

Several amendments to the Government’s text have been made since our previous newsletter:

• In regard to Labour Law, an agreement between the company and all or part of its employees (accord d’entreprise ou de branche) will be required to allow an employer to impose a week’s paid leave on an employee (this agreement may only amend the leave provisions for a maximum of 6 working days).

  The employer will also be able to change the dates of time of in lieu (jours de réduction du temps de travail), rest days provided for in flat rate agreements and rest days allocated to the employee’s time saving account (compte épargne-temps du salarié).

  Finally, the Government may take any measure that will modify the procedures for informing and consulting the staff representative bodies and suspending the electoral processes of the social and economic committees in progress;
   

• On the provision relating to the deferral or staggering of rent payment, the adverb “in full” has been added in order to guarantee companies the full deferral of their rents and invoices relating to the occupancy of business premises.

  In addition, the notion of “very small enterprises” has been replaced by that of “microenterprises within the meaning of Decree No. 2008-1354 of 18 December 2008”. The deferral of rent payments will therefore only be for microenterprises whose activity is affected by the spread of the epidemic;
   

• Finally, it was added that the Government will be able to take any measure derogating from the rules of personal and pecuniary liability of public accountants and any measure allowing the Central Agency of Social Security Bodies (l’Agence centrale des organismes de sécurité sociale) to grant loans to entities managing a compulsory supplementary social security scheme (“organismes gérant un régime complémentaire obligatoire de sécurité sociale “).

The Management Committee
on behalf of the Partners of Gide

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