Article 222-33-2 of the penal code penalizes moral harassment in the workplace. Since its adoption, the text has undergone several judicial reviews that modify its practical scope, both for victims and for the alleged perpetrators. The decisions rendered by the Court of Cassation in 2025 redefine the contours of this offense on at least three determining points: the role of intent, the proof of degradation, and the responsibility of executives.
Institutional moral harassment: when corporate policy becomes a criminal offense
Most analyses of Article 222-33-2 focus on the relationships between two individuals, a superior and a subordinate. Recent case law requires us to broaden this reading.
In its ruling of January 21, 2025 (n° 22-87.145), the criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation confirmed that actions resulting from a corporate policy designed and implemented by executives can fall under Article 222-33-2, even without initial individual targeting. So-called “institutional” moral harassment does not require that management specifically targeted a particular employee.
In practical terms, a reorganization plan, a systemic managerial method, or a downsizing program can constitute the factual basis for criminal proceedings if their effects degrade the working conditions of a group of employees. The sanctions of Article 222-33-2 of the penal code then directly target the individuals who designed or approved these policies.
This interpretation broadens the scope of criminal risk well beyond the immediate manager. It places executive committees and HR managers in a position of heightened vigilance regarding the human consequences of their organizational decisions.
Moral element of workplace harassment: intent to harm is not required
A common defense argument is to claim that the perpetrator did not intend to harm the victim. The Court of Cassation dismissed this line in a ruling of March 11, 2025 (n° 22-83.263).
The criminal chamber reminds us that the moral element of the offense is limited to the awareness of committing the acts and violating the law. Intent to harm is not required to characterize moral harassment. A superior who imposes degrading working conditions “for the good of the service” or “out of managerial habit” can be convicted as long as they were aware of the nature of their actions.
This position has a direct impact on litigation strategy. It deprives defendants of a defense based on demonstrating a lack of personal malice. The criminal judge does not need to probe the deep motivations of the perpetrator: it is sufficient to establish that the repeated behaviors were intentional and that their author could not be unaware of their unlawful nature.
What this changes for evidence
On the victim’s side, the burden of proof is simplified on a specific point. It is no longer necessary to demonstrate personal animosity or targeted hostility. The production of factual elements (emails, reports, colleague testimonies, medical certificates) attesting to the repetition of behaviors and the author’s awareness of them is sufficient to ground the prosecution.
Deterioration of working conditions: object or effect, the distinction that changes everything
The text of Article 222-33-2 targets actions that have “as their object or effect” a deterioration of working conditions. For a long time, some jurisdictions required proof of a tangible result: sick leave, diagnosed depression, forced resignation.
The decision of March 11, 2025 clarifies this point. The offense can be constituted even without actual deterioration of working conditions, as long as the actions had the object of such deterioration. The term “object” refers to the purpose or intrinsic nature of the behaviors, regardless of their concrete outcome.
This distinction has important practical consequences:
- A victim who has psychologically resisted or left the company before the effects materialize retains the possibility of filing a complaint.
- The judge can retain the criminal qualification based on the nature of the acts (being sidelined, deliberate overload, humiliations in meetings) without waiting for a medical certificate attesting to health damage.
- Employers can no longer argue the absence of measurable consequences to contest the qualification of moral harassment.
Limitation and six-year period: the starting point in question
Moral harassment at work is a tortious offense. The limitation period is six years. The peculiarity lies in its starting point: harassment being a successive (or continuous) offense, the period begins to run from the last act in the series of constitutive facts.
In practice, this means that an employee who has suffered actions over several years can initiate proceedings within six years following the last repeated act. Older behaviors, which would be time-barred if considered in isolation, remain prosecutable if they are part of a series whose last element is recent.
Risks related to the articulation with other qualifications
When acts of moral harassment are accompanied by behaviors falling under other texts (insults, threats, discrimination), the question of the articulation of qualifications arises. The accumulation of prosecutions on several legal grounds is possible, but the judge ensures compliance with the principle of non-accumulation of penalties for identical facts. The choice of the most appropriate qualification conditions both the scale of the penalties incurred and the applicable limitation periods.
Field reports vary on how prosecutors handle these situations of concurrent offenses, particularly when acts of cyberharassment extend behaviors committed within the company’s premises. The boundary between workplace moral harassment (Article 222-33-2) and general moral harassment (Article 222-33-2-2) remains a point of interpretation that largely depends on the factual context presented to the judge.
The judicial developments of 2025 strengthen the penal scope of Article 222-33-2. They shift the burden of proof, extend responsibility to decision-makers, and reduce defense margins based on the absence of intent or result. For companies, the criminal risk associated with managerial choices has never been more concrete.
