We helped a former worker at Mi-Clos (a studio liquidated in 2024) who complained about sexual and sexist harassment from her manager, and who was forced to formally record the breach of her contract to protect herself. She chose to present her case before the labour court.
The plaintiff mentioned repeated sexual remarks (remarks on her appearance, invitations to chat “out of the office”, insistent demands to obtain her personal phone number, offers to take items directly out of her own pockets…). Despite an alert to worker representatives, followed by a “warning”, the acts didn’t stop.
Even worse, the plaintiff suffered retaliations. Despite another alert to worker representatives, to the labour inspection and to occupational medecine, the company didn’t take any other measures to put an end to the harassment.
Streetpress talked about this case in more details in 2024 (in French) : Au studio de jeux vidéo Mi-Clos, l’ambiance sexiste et les incohérences de production épuisent | StreetPress
Last September, the Créteil labour court sentenced the company to:
- 3750 € in damages as compensation for the sexual harassment and sexist behaviour from her creative director,
- 3750 € in damages as compensation for violating its duty to assess and prevent psycho-social risks, and its safety obligations,
- The reclassification of the breach of contract as an illegal firing with 11250 € in advance notice, 1125 € for holidays not taken, and 937 € for severance pay,
- 22 500 € in damages for illegally firing the plaintiff.
Since the liquidator did not appeal the decision, the sentence is final.
Michael Peiffert, president of the company at the time of the incidents, took the liberty to rant in his right to reply to the Streetpress article :
“One person, Emilie sensing trouble, as she said herself, is making statements against another employee to ask 50 000 € from the company. The company liquidation didn’t allow to check for the truth behind her remarks to go beyond the warning, but also and mostly made her hope for gains more than hypothetical.”
In the meantime, the veracity of the events has been check by the justice system: Emilie did not act out of opportunism, and Mi-Clos was permanently found guilty and sentenced to pay more than 43000 € to the plaintiff.
Despite companies’ pink-washing, gender discrimination and sexual harassment are still commonplace at work, and directly contribute to a lack of diversity. This case is a perfect example: the victim later decided to quit the video game industry entirely.
But nothing is set in stone. We will keep on pursuing heads of companies and perpetrators to make them answer for their acts in front of a court.
If you are a victim and need help, feel free to contact our union.
We recommend to everyone to read our guides, especially the one on self-defence in the workplace.