There is indeed a lot of red tape but these are the avenues to fire someone:

- Severe underperformance (building of a dossier over months will be necessary for solid proof).

- The employee doesn't come to work anymore without a valid reason

- There is the 'faute grave' reason. It means that the person did something very very bad in the company, for instance sexual assault, or put critical assets in jeopardy, fraud, blatant misbehavior, stuff like that.

Usually there is at least a 8 month probation period (for engineers and most high paying jobs) in which you can fire someone with between 2 days and 2 weeks notice. No need for a reason whatsoever. (This applies to France)

Not "at least", more like "at most". It's 4months + 4months. And you have to "willing-fully" accept the second 4 months (but they can fire you if you don't).

The "faute grave" you are referring to is the "faute lourde", for which the employee voluntarily caused harm to the company. A "faute grave" is more like a big mistake, harassment, misbehavior, etc.

Basically, you can fire anyone you want if you pay for it. But you'll have to pay, and if the employee is not happy with what they receive, they can go to court (which is very long, most of them won't).

Thanks for the corrections! You are of course right, I'm not very up to speed on the different nuances.

If you don't accept the 4 month renewal of the probation period it is usually a firing reason for them... of course YMMV.

I guess it depends on your definition of 'extremely difficult', but I can confirm that in many European countries, you can't 'just' fire someone.

You either have to have firm proof that the person is severely underperforming (building up a dossier over months or years), or firm proof that the company needs to lay off people. When laying off you can't choose who to lay off, but it has to be on a "last in first out" basis (within interchangeable jobs).

The implication being that if you’re an average performer with tenure you’re basically impossible to fire.

What's interesting is that the tech industry in the US has developed an ever worsening pathological fear of making bad hires, almost as if they're in a European environment where it is difficult to fire someone. Even though in the US it is still mostly "at-will" should you actually need to let someone go, the hiring practices are becoming increasingly fossilized and fearful of hiring anyone who isn't perfect on day one, which must be a big drag on those companies who really need additional labor to get things done.

In the relatively small niche of US software developers maybe... in other areas it doesn't matter. Most white collar jobs have otherwise externalized credentialing. Some places actually train workers on the job!

I worked at a French company for a while and witnessed what happens when they wanted to fire a manager. They just brazenly hired his replacement and had them work "along side" the unwanted manager and slowly removed his responsibilities. Everyone knew what was going on, and it was only about 3 months later they were leaving for another company.