In order to fight against wage discrimination, a European directive will require companies to make public very precise data on the level and differences in pay between their employees.
In France, salary is often a taboo subject. Beyond the moral considerations that surround it, this culture of secrecy can conceal salary inequalities for illegitimate reasons, such as gender, social or ethnic origin or even “cronyism” links between certain employees and employers. But this opacity will perhaps soon become a thing of the past, because European law will shake up the established order in terms of salary transparency.
Directive (EU) 2023/970 of May 10, 2023 imposes new obligations on companies with more than 100 employees. In the future, the latter will have to publish each year, according to precise conditions, detailed statistics on the remuneration levels and the salary gaps between their employees, according to criteria such as gender, age or position occupied. . This obligation aims to highlight possible disparities and promote pay equity.
At the same time, employees and candidates for employment will see their rights strengthened. They will now be able to request, from their employer or future employer, very precise information on the salary ranges for a given position, as well as on the remuneration criteria. Additionally, the directive now prohibits companies from requesting a candidate's previous pay slips, a practice that could be used to justify lower salaries.
To ensure compliance with these new rules, the directive strongly recommends that Member States put in place a system of sanctions that are “effective, proportionate and dissuasive”. These could take different forms, such as fines calculated based on the annual turnover or payroll of the offending companies. And we can imagine that the legislator will be more creative, for example by reserving access to public procurement only for companies that respect the new rules.
Member States, and therefore France, must integrate the principles of the directive into their national law from June 7, 2026. After this date, companies will gradually be subject to the new obligations depending on their size: from June 7, 2027 for those with more than 150 employees, and from June 7, 2031 for those with more than 100 employees. However, Member States are also free to extend pay transparency obligations to companies with fewer than 100 employees.
This new community legislation constitutes a significant change in relations between employers and employees, and will cause a real upheaval in the communication culture of companies, particularly French ones, which are not accustomed to such transparency. Depending on how the directive is transposed into French national law, and above all how it is actually applied, it could help fight against pay discrimination and strengthen the bargaining power of employees.
