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Corporate officer and resignation from the employment contract
As a reminder, the employee appointed as a corporate officer within a company has his or her employment contract suspended for the duration of the corporate office. The representative therefore ceases to be bound to the company by any subordination link "unless otherwise agreed" as specified by the Court of Cassation in its constant jurisprudence (Cass. soc., n°10-14.896, January 5, 2011)
However, the suspension of the employment contract cannot be assimilated to any desire on the part of the corporate officer to resign from his employment contract: the resignation must result from a clear and unequivocal act, as the Court of Cassation has just firmly reminded us: thus, the signature by the employee appointed as corporate officer of the minutes of the board of directors formalizing his appointment and mentioning that the officer "declares that he renounces the benefit of his employment contract and will no longer be remunerated under it" does not constitute a resignation. (Cass. soc., n°20-15.113, May 18, 2022)
It is also important to note that this principle applies regardless of the duration of the corporate mandate: in this case, the employee, hired in 1970, held a corporate mandate from 1987 to 2014.
It is therefore necessary to be particularly vigilant in the event of termination of the corporate mandate and in particular not to consider the employment contract as automatically terminated.