In a decision issued on 2 April 2003 the Cour de Cassation revisited the definition of actual working time and on-call duty. It held that time worked by employees is actual working time where:
They are required to remain on premises specified by the employer and located within the immediate proximity of their work place, so that;
They can respond quickly to any request for assistance.
The employee must therefore be compensated on this basis. The Cour de Cassation applied virtually the same definition as that provided by the Law of 13 June 1998, but with a significant twist. Employees who are on-call must be prevented from attending not just to personal affairs in general, but to their own personal affairs. Accordingly, where the employee is at the company’s disposal in a place other than his domicile, there is a strong chance that such time will be considered actual working time if the employee is no longer able to attend to his personal affairs. Employers must therefore ensure that the rules relating to maximum working time and to daily and weekly rest time are scrupulously applied once the on-call duty falls within the scope of actual working time.
