France is continuing to refine its long-awaited bill transposing the EU Pay Transparency Directive, with a revised draft suggesting that the government is seeking a more detailed and operational framework before the text reaches Parliament. Although the deadline for transposition expired on 7 June 2026, the Ministry of Labour circulated an updated version of the draft law to social partners on 5 June 2026, introducing a series of noteworthy adjustments while preserving the overall architecture of the earlier March version.

One of the most significant changes concerns the definition of “work of equal value.” The revised draft rewrites Article L. 3221-4 of the French Labour Code more extensively and states that jobs must now be compared on the basis of a broader set of objective, gender-neutral criteria. These include professional knowledge, acquired experience, soft skills, responsibilities, working conditions, and physical or mental workload. The new wording also places greater emphasis on a global assessment of those criteria, which could make pay comparisons more structured and potentially more demanding for employers.

The draft also clarifies how employees are to be grouped into categories of equal-value work. It maintains the principle that this categorisation should in priority be negotiated through a company-level agreement. However, if negotiations fail, the employer would now be able to adopt a unilateral decision for a maximum period of three years, either by applying a branch-level categorisation or by creating its own framework after consulting the works council. At branch level, social partners would have six months from the promulgation of the law to open negotiations on the issue.

Another notable evolution is the phased implementation schedule for smaller businesses. Whereas the first draft had provided for a single deadline of 1 June 2030 for all companies with fewer than 150 employees, the new text introduces a staggered mechanism. Companies with 100 to 149 employees would have up to three years after promulgation to comply, while those with 50 to 99 employees would have up to six years. The government’s apparent objective is to give small and medium-sized employers more time to build the tools needed to measure and address pay gaps effectively. 

The revised bill also seeks to strike a more precise balance between transparency and practicality. For companies with 50 to 99 employees, it now expressly states that corrective measures are required only where a pay gap cannot be justified by objective, gender-neutral factors. For larger companies, the draft strengthens the right of employees, staff representatives and trade unions to request information, while at the same time allowing employers to refuse requests deemed abusive, particularly where they are repetitive, systematic or excessively numerous. 

Confidentiality remains another sensitive issue addressed by the June draft. An employer would no longer be allowed to refuse disclosure of pay data solely because the relevant professional category is too small. Instead, the employer would have to show that disclosure could directly or indirectly reveal an individual employee’s remuneration because too few people belong to that category. This clarification is designed to reconcile the directive’s transparency goals with data protection concerns surrounding individual pay information.

On enforcement, the bill clearly strengthens the enforcement framework. It confirms a reversal of the burden of proof in disputes involving alleged discrimination linked to breaches of transparency obligations. More significantly, when no real comparator can be identified, employees would be allowed to rely on statistical evidence or even hypothetical comparisons to support a presumption of discrimination. This could significantly facilitate equal-pay claims.

Sanctions are also being reinforced. The draft maintains existing Labour Code penalties on professional equality while adding an aggravating circumstance where several employees are affected, in which case the penalty could rise to two years’ imprisonment and a €7,500 fine. It would also broaden the scope of the existing administrative fine of up to €450, notably in cases involving failures to inform the works council or to transmit certain unilateral employer decisions to the administration. 

Under the revised draft, companies sanctioned for breaching certain pay transparency obligations could face a new optional exclusion ground from public contracts and concession procedures for up to one year. 

The political timetable, however, remains somewhat fluid. In a report published on 29 June 2026 French Labour Minister considered it “likely” that the bill would be presented to the Council of Ministers in July 2026, with parliamentary debate beginning in the second half of 2026. He also said he hoped to “create the conditions for a vote” before the end of the current term, that is, before the 2027 presidential election. Those remarks suggest a slightly later and more cautious legislative path than the government had previously envisaged.