French Commercial code
In forceAll employees of the company and, where applicable, of its direct or indirect subsidiaries, whose registered office is located on French territory and whose employment contract predates the date of the election by three months are eligible to vote. Voting is secret.
Where at least one seat is reserved for engineers, managers and similar staff pursuant to Article L. 225-27, employees are divided into two colleges voting separately. The first college comprises engineers, managers and similar staff, the second comprises other employees. The Articles of Association determine the distribution of seats per college according to the structure of the workforce.
When the same Article L. 225-27 is applied, candidates or lists of candidates may be presented either by one or more representative trade union organisations within the meaning of Article L. 423-2 of the Labour Code, or by one-twentieth of the electors or, if the number of electors exceeds two thousand, by one hundred of them. Where Article L. 225-27-1 of this Code is applied, the candidates or lists of candidates shall be presented by one or more representative trade union organisations within the meaning of Article L. 2122-1 of the Labour Code.
When there is only one seat to be filled for the entire electorate, the election takes place by majority vote in two rounds. When there is only one seat to be filled in an electoral college, the election takes place by majority vote in two rounds in this college. Each nomination must include, in addition to the name of the candidate, that of any substitute. Candidates and their substitutes must be of different sexes. The candidate who obtains an absolute majority of the votes cast in the first round and a relative majority in the second round is declared elected.
In all other cases, the election is held by proportional representation with the highest number of votes remaining on the list, without any mixture. Each list must contain twice as many candidates as there are seats to be filled and must be made up alternately of one candidate of each sex. On each of the lists, the difference between the number of candidates of each sex may not be greater than one.
In the event of a tie, the candidates with the longest employment contracts are declared elected.
The other voting procedures are laid down in the Articles of Association.
Challenges relating to electorate, eligibility and the regularity of electoral operations shall be brought before the judge of the judicial court, who shall give the final ruling under the conditions provided for in the first paragraph of Article L. 433-11 of the Labour Code.
