France

Relations between employers and employees are governed by the Labour Code (Code du travail). Another key reference are the sector agreements: each sector has its own collective agreement negociated at national or regional level between unions and employer associations. For the banking sector, this is AFB (Association Française des Banques) and the representative trade unions (CFDT, CGT, CFTC, FO and SNB-CGC).In individual companies, relations between employers and employees are goverened by enterprise level agreements negociated by the unions and employers.  

Employment in France is built around two basic types of contracts: the CDI (contrat à durée indéterminée – indefinite duration) and CDD (contrat à durée determine – limited duration).  There are number of other employment contracts in France: most of them apply to specific situations or industrial branches. If many forms of precarious contracts have become more important over the last years, the common form remains the CDI.