OD FLASH | Wage inequality resulting from a conventional classification is presumed to be justified.

Cour de cassation, Chambre sociale, 17 décembre 2025, n° 24-11.722 

Court of Cassation, Social Chamber, December 17, 2025, No. 24-11.722

The Court of Cassation points out that a difference in remuneration resulting from the application of a collective agreement is presumed to be justified, so that it is up to the employee who contests it to demonstrate that it is unrelated to professional considerations.

In this case, an employee, hired as a physiotherapy technician, brought a case before the labor court to obtain payment of back wages and related paid leave, arguing that there was an unjustified difference in remuneration linked to different minimum wages under the collective agreement for massage therapists and physiotherapy technicians. In this case, the minimum wages for these two positions were derived from the collective agreement for thermal spas and an internal collective agreement.

The Court of Appeal hearing the case upheld this claim, emphasizing that the employees performed essentially the same tasks (except for certain peripheral tasks performed only by physiotherapists) and that the employer did not justify the difference in remuneration thus implemented. Challenging this reasoning, the employer appealed to the Court of Cassation. According to the appeal judges, the company should have responded to the argument raised in the claim and demonstrated that this distinction was not unrelated to professional considerations.

Confirming its previous case law (Cass. soc., January 27, 2015, No. 13-22.179, No. 13-25.437, No. 13-14.773 and Cass. soc., June 8, 2016, No. 15-11.324), the Court of Cassation overturned the appeal ruling, stating that “differences in treatment between professional categories or between employees performing different functions within the same professional category, implemented by means of collective agreements or conventions negotiated and signed by representative trade unions, (…) are presumed to be justified, so that it is up to those who contest them to demonstrate that they are unrelated to any professional considerations .”

In this case, the difference in remuneration resulted from the application of the classification set out in the national collective agreement for the spa industry. The resulting wage inequality was therefore presumed to be justified, and it was up to the employee contesting it to prove that it was unrelated to professional considerations, and not the other way around.