On 9 December 2025, MP Christelle Minard presented a draft bill aimed at providing a legislative framework for HR internal investigations in France. This initiative, which has been highly praised by legal and HR practitioners, is presented as something everyone can agree on.
The draft bill does not appear to be among the French National Assembly's current priorities. Nevertheless, it deserves careful consideration. France must urgently equip itself with effective legislation on this subject.
An initial legislative response to multiple legal and HR issues
The spike in internal investigations over the past few years has revealed the shortcomings of France’s legal framework. The explanatory memorandum attached to the draft bill highlights the challenges of competitiveness and strategic security, but the legislative vacuum remains a major challenge for employers.
The legislator has so far paid little attention to the issue. There is only one obligation governing internal investigations under French labor law: the employer’s duty of care.
Small and medium-sized companies struggle to develop their policies and seldom have the funds to call on specialists. This insecurity becomes even more critical as questioning the investigation’s validity can have serious financial consequences.
To date, case law has established several principles governing internal investigations – such as the protection of the right to privacy, the absence of legal value of unsigned testimony, and the right to a fair trial. But these safeguards, which could appear too vague for operational implementation purposes remain insufficient to determine the internal investigation process with certainty.
Furthermore, case law solutions remain vulnerable to unsettling U-turns. For example, the obligation to conduct an internal investigation following allegations of moral harassment has ultimately become a mere option for employers. Very recently, the French Supreme Court reached the same conclusion in cases involving allegations of sexual harassment.
This non-binding nature has consequences, particularly regarding the employee’s right to object to the processing of personal data. The employer cannot claim the necessity of fulfilling a legal duty.
Companies already did not know how to investigate; now they no longer know when to initiate the process.
To address these shortcomings, soft law stakeholders have put forward tools and best practice guidelines. However, these initiatives fail to align and often contradict one another. They also fall short of the legitimacy needed to guarantee an investigation’s legal validity.
The legislator has complete leeway to act.
Setting fundamental principles in stone
Composed of just four articles, the draft bill incorporates most of the recommendations made by legal practitioners.
It aims at providing for a common definition of internal investigation, which it characterizes as “a formal process conducted within a private or public organization to verify whether alleged facts or suspicions of violations of laws or internal rules of the organization are proven”.
This broad definition emphasizes the positive purpose of the investigation and its proactive nature to ascertain the facts which would support a final decision.
This provision also enshrines the obligation to conduct an impartial investigation that guarantees the rights of individuals, as well as the principle of proportionality between the duty of the employer to investigate and the rights of the employee in a balanced way which preserves his fundamental rights.
The draft bill essentially builds on existing case law, without making any breakthroughs in this field.
Even so, the draft details the case of internal investigations when criminal proceedings are ongoing. This scenario is particularly sensitive for companies, as the rights of the defense must be preserved.
For this specific case, the draft bill sets out in greater detail the stages of the investigation. It provides the investigated party with several rights, including the right to be notified and informed throughout the proceedings, the right to terminate the interview, the right to be accompanied by a lawyer, and the right to make observations.
Finally, the proposed draft bill establishes the tie between the lawyer’s internal investigation and the duty of confidentiality. The legislator maintains the free choice of investigating solicitor, without ruling on the question of the dual role of “investigating solicitor” and “company legal adviser”.
Greater legal and HR effectiveness
This draft bill establishes a set of fundamental rules to conduct internal investigations, but remains silent on many practical issues, particularly when the internal investigation is not accompanied by a criminal investigation.
This choice may seem surprising. But it is in line with the proposals made, which warned against the risks of an overly rigid framework. For the practitioners who called for this measure, restrictive legislation would overcomplicate the process and fail to recognize the contribution of each company’s values to the procedure including through soft law.
In conclusion, the proposed law guarantees certain principles that must guide internal investigations while preserving the beneficial effects of companies’ policies. While it is a first step in the right direction for more clarity and legal certainty, companies which do not have yet an internal process in place to conduct such investigations may not gain from this draft’s ready-made instructions to implement them in France.
To secure the validity of their investigations, employers could be tempted to duplicate the extra secured procedure provided by the draft bill for internal investigations applicable when criminal proceedings are ongoing to all kinds of internal investigations, therefore raising up the level of guarantees finally expected by the judge.