It's pretty easy to sum things up in this way, and the tone of the NYT piece is snide (ha-ha-ha how to fire a Frenchman LOL!), and not at all neutral on employer/employee relations (the only source is a lawyer working presumably for big firms on, again presumably, big lay-offs. No one from a union is consulted, for example).

Comment: let's take it from the end.

(4) The cupboard solution is one that is known pretty much everywhere, not just in France, and all it adds to this article is a closing "humoristic" note.

(3) Reaching an agreement over the departure of an employee, which may include payment of a sum of money, is also a practice not specific to France. How much do American CEOs get in their "severance package" when they screw up and have to go?

More seriously, this section mixes up obligations which are legal and contractual, with optional offers of money. Legally, severance pay is due if the employee has been employed more than two years, and the cause for dismissal is not extremely serious, (such as theft, for example). Contractually, the period of notice must be paid even if the employer tells the employee not to come to work during that period (but on this point, does no one in other countries, including the US, have a contract stipulating a notice period of one, two, three months, sometimes more?) What may be optional in some cases is that an employer makes an offer to an employee to reach an agreement over the employee's departure. Again, is that kind of arrangement unknown elsewhere?

(2) PROVE HE DID A BAD, BAD THING That's really skewed and not informative. Put it this way: if an employee does a bad, bad thing, you can fire her/im on the spot and throw them off the premises (and proceed to sue them if you wish, in cases of embezzlement or commercial/technological espionage, for example).

In cases where it's not a bad, bad thing, but just incompetence, poor performance, incapacity to do the job (including for health reasons), refusal to accept changes that were properly discussed in advance, (for example), there is a procedure to be followed in which the problem is discussed and evaluated between employer and employee and, if the problem isn't settled, dismissal follows. Dismissals for causes like this happen all the time.

It's important to note that the article seems to assume the employer needs to go to court to fire someone. This is not so. If the employee decides they consider the dismissal unfair, they are free to take it to court. Then the employer has to show the procedure was properly respected, and the cause was real and serious. Employees win these cases fairly often, but employers do too.

(1) Economic reasons. In cases like a downturn, or a change in specific market conditions, or loss of a contract, etc, you can lay people off, again by following proper procedure since you may have to show this in court (but not necessarily, see above). Large companies have more constraints in this field ("social plans" for big lay-offs).

On severance pay: this is mandatory in dismissals except those for extremely serious causes (bad, bad things). But it is not as colossal as is often made out. The English-language press often talks of "hefty severance" and burdens and suchlike. But the basic mandatory system is :

• no severance pay during years one and two;
  
• thereafter, a small amount per year of employment. I think it's one-twentieth of one month's salary per annum. I'll try and check and confirm that.

(Of course, if you have hired someone after negotiation of more favourable conditions for that employee, you're contractually bound by those conditions -- as you would be anywhere else in the world).

So, to sum up: the NYT piece isn't entirely false, but it takes a certain manifest delight in playing on conventional wisdom and received ideas about (ha-ha-ha!!!) the French and hiring/firing. Reality is more complex. France is certainly not America in these matters, but neither is it the caricature shown in the Eng-lang press.