France: emergency draft legislation containing work-related measures to cope with the Covid-19 crisis

On 18 March the Council of Ministers adopted an ‘Emergency bill to deal with the Covid-19 epidemic’, that empowers the government by way of ordinances to take interim measures that will ‘limit the cessation of business activities (...) and employment dismissal,’ which concern not only part-time unemployment, but also give employers more resources to impose or modify the taking of leave periods and also to derogate from the Labour Code and collective agreements as concerns the right to rest periods. The arrangements for informing and consulting WCs could also be provisionally revised, in particular by facilitating the use of videoconferencing, so as not to slow down procedures.