The best email address for a French works council (the CSE, comité social et économique) is a role address, such as the council’s address, that belongs to the council rather than to one elected member, and that each member reaches with their own login. It can live on the employer’s email system, if an agreement provides for it, or be opened by the CSE itself, as long as the login and recovery details do not depend on a single person. The provider matters less than one question: what happens to the address on the day the secretary is no longer elected.
Why the CSE needs its own address
French law requires a CSE in companies with at least eleven employees. Its members do not stay: they are elected for four years, or for a term of 2 to 4 years if a collective agreement says so. A term can also end early. The Labor Code lists death, resignation, termination of the employment contract and loss of the conditions required to be eligible.
In practice, the secretary who opened the CSE’s address may leave the company halfway through the term. The treasurer may not stand again. The council carries on: employees still write about event tickets, a problem with gift vouchers, a question before the next meeting. The address has to follow the CSE, not the people.
There are four ways to set it up. Here they are, with what each becomes at the next election.
Option A: a council address on the company’s email system
When the company has its own email system, this is the setup that published company agreements describe. The agreement signed at Reims Santé au Travail on 12 November 2024 provides for “the creation of a specific email address made up as follows: cse@reimssantetravail.fr”. It adds that only a staff representative “with a current term of office” can be a contributor, and that this role ends with the term. The agreement at the CAF des Alpes-Maritimes (a family benefits office) of 29 September 2022 opens a shared mailbox in the CSE’s name and reserves “the right to send and receive” to full and substitute members, and to the CSE’s own employees.
What works: the address carries the company’s name, employees recognize it, and it depends on no elected member. When a term ends, IT removes that person’s access and the mailbox stays.
What gets in the way:
- It needs the employer’s agreement. The French government’s page on the CSE’s resources says nothing about an email address: it lists a room and, from 50 employees, “the necessary equipment (a phone line, documentation for example)”. To write to all employees through company email, the CSE Guide website sums it up: the CSE “does not have the right to communicate with employees through company email or the intranet”, and to do so from a mailing list, “an agreement with the employer is required”.
- Confidentiality. The account is administered by the company. Éditions Tissot, a French publisher for practitioners, notes in a Q&A that the employer must make sure the IT tools given to staff representatives preserve the confidentiality of their mission, and that with a dedicated email account “specific security measures must be defined or implemented to ensure confidentiality”. Better to write those measures into the agreement than to assume them.
If your employer offers a council address, take it, and use the same agreement to settle who can access it, how access changes after an election, and what protects the confidentiality of the council’s mail.
Option B: a Gmail or Outlook account opened by one member
Many CSEs do this when the employer offers nothing: ourcompany.cse@gmail.com, created in five minutes by the secretary or the treasurer.
It works. The trouble comes at the end of the term, or before. A free Gmail or Outlook.com account is a personal account: most of the time, the recovery phone and recovery email belong to the member who created it. If that member resigns, leaves the company or is not re-elected, the CSE depends on their goodwill to get access back. If they leave on bad terms, or change phone numbers, the mailbox can become impossible to open.
If you go this way, do three things on day one:
- Create the account with a role address, never a first name.
- Write down in the CSE’s records where the address is hosted, who holds it and which recovery details were entered.
- Plan to switch the recovery details at every change of secretary, before the person actually leaves.
Can a CSE get Google Workspace for free?
Probably not, and that is our reading, not an answer from Google. For France, Google limits its nonprofit offer to a nonprofit “established under applicable law” and “published in the Journal officiel des associations or any other French legal publication” (our translation). Google does not mention CSEs. A CSE is a body set up by the Labor Code, not a registered association, and we do not see how it would meet that condition.
Option C: a member’s personal address
No. The history leaves with the person: two years of exchanges with employees, suppliers and the employer end up in a mailbox the CSE does not control. The next secretary starts from nothing.
The same reasoning works the other way. If the CSE wants to write to employees at their personal address, they “must explicitly give their consent”, the CSE Guide points out. For a newsletter, the same guide advises sending from the CSE’s mailbox: “the ideal is to use the CSE’s mailbox”.
Option D: a shared mailbox with one login per member
Options A and B raise the same question once the address exists: how do the secretary, the treasurer and the other members all get in? The reflex is to pass the password around. That is fragile: every departure means changing the password for everyone, and nobody knows who replied to what.
The CAF des Alpes-Maritimes agreement states the right rule: CSE members “must be personally identified as the senders of the messages they send on behalf of the CSE”. In other words, one shared address, one login per person. You know who sent what, and when a member leaves, you remove their access without touching anyone else’s.
Depending on where the address lives, that can be a shared mailbox on the company’s email system, Gmail delegation, or a tool that connects on top of the existing address. The options and their limits are covered in how to share a mailbox without sharing the password.
Write the rules into the CSE’s internal regulations
The Labor Code asks the CSE to set out, “in internal regulations, the terms of its operation and of its relations with the company’s employees”. The email address belongs to both. A few lines are enough:
- the CSE’s official address, and the fact that no personal address replaces it;
- who can access it: full members, substitutes, the CSE’s own employees if any;
- who answers what: the secretary for the employer, the treasurer for social and cultural activities, for example;
- what happens when a term ends: access removed, recovery details updated, within a set time.
When the council’s membership changes, the works council mailbox handover then follows a written rule rather than someone’s memory.
The checklist
- Pick a role address: the council’s address or the contact address, never a first name.
- If the employer offers an address on its system, have an agreement state who can access it and how confidentiality is protected.
- If you create an account yourselves, record who holds it and which recovery details were entered, in the CSE’s records.
- Do not use a personal address, either to receive mail or to write to employees without their consent.
- Give each member their own access instead of a shared password.
- Put these rules in the internal regulations.
- At the end of each term, remove the access of those leaving and give it to the newly elected members.
With Trupeo: the address stays with the CSE, each member has their own login
Trupeo is a shared mailbox for small teams. You connect the address the CSE already has, on Gmail, Outlook, Microsoft 365 or any IMAP provider, and each elected member signs in with their own account. You see who is on each email, members leave each other team notes that employees never see, and an email that is dealt with is marked done. When a member leaves the CSE, you remove their access: the address and the whole history stay with the council.
One limit worth knowing: if your council address lives on the company’s email system, connecting it to an outside tool is a decision to make with IT.
The price is the same as for any team: €10 per month excluding VAT for 2 people, €20 per month excluding VAT from 3 people, per connected mailbox. See our page for works councils and our pricing. For the emails that come back every week, our reply templates for works councils save time, and our comparison of the best shared inbox for small teams covers the other tools too.
Frequently asked questions
What email address should a French works council use?
A role address, such as cse@yourcompany.fr or yourcompany.cse@gmail.com, that belongs to the council and not to one member. On the company’s email system, it requires an agreement with the employer. Opened by the CSE itself, it has to be documented so a new secretary can take it over. Either way, give each member their own access.
Can a CSE use a Gmail account?
Yes, many do, especially when the employer offers no address. The risk is that a free Gmail account is tied to the person who created it, recovery phone and recovery email included. Record who holds it, change the recovery details at every handover, and avoid sharing the password among all members.
Does the employer have to provide the CSE with an email address?
The French government’s page on the CSE’s resources lists a room and, from 50 employees, the necessary equipment such as a phone line, but says nothing about an email address. In practice, a council address on the company’s system is negotiated, for example in an agreement on how staff representatives use company email, like the ones quoted above.
Can the CSE email all employees through the company’s email system?
Not without an agreement. The CSE Guide notes that the CSE has no such right by default and that an agreement with the employer is required to use a mailing list. Published agreements, such as the one at Reims Santé au Travail, set out what the CSE can send and to whom.
How can elected members share the CSE’s mailbox?
By giving each member their own access rather than a shared password: a shared mailbox on the company’s system, Gmail delegation, or a shared inbox tool connected to the existing address. Each member is then identified when writing on behalf of the CSE, and a departure is handled by removing one login.
What happens to the CSE’s address after an election?
If it belongs to the council, nothing changes for employees: only the access changes. Outgoing members lose theirs, new members get theirs, and the recovery details are updated. If it depends on an outgoing member, the account has to be recovered before they leave, which is why the rule belongs in the internal regulations.
Sources:
- French Labor Code, article L2311-2 (in French): a CSE is set up in companies with at least eleven employees, mandatory once that headcount is reached for twelve consecutive months.
- Service Public: the comité social et économique (in French): the CSE in companies with 11 employees or more, elected every 4 years.
- French Labor Code, article L2314-33 (in French): members elected for four years, and terms ending through death, resignation, termination of the employment contract or loss of the conditions required to be eligible.
- French Labor Code, article L2314-34 (in French): an agreement can set the term between two and four years.
- Service Public Entreprendre: CSE elections (in French): a collective agreement can set a term of 2 to 4 years.
- French Labor Code, article L2315-24 (in French): the internal regulations that set the CSE’s operation and its relations with employees.
- Service Public: the CSE’s resources (in French): the room provided to the CSE and, from 50 employees, the necessary equipment (a phone line, documentation for example); the page does not mention an email address.
- Company agreement, CAF des Alpes-Maritimes, 29 September 2022 (in French): article 4.1, the shared mailbox in the CSE’s name, the right to send and receive reserved to full and substitute members and the CSE’s employees, and members “personally identified” as senders.
- Company agreement, Reims Santé au Travail, 12 November 2024 (in French): the creation of cse@reimssantetravail.fr, and contributors limited to staff representatives with a current term of office.
- CSE Guide: CSE communication (in French): an undated practical guide on the CSE having no right to use company email without an agreement, the explicit consent employees must give for their personal address, and the CSE’s mailbox as the sender.
- Éditions Tissot: can the employer access staff representatives’ email? (in French): the public extract of a practitioner Q&A, on the confidentiality the IT tools given to representatives must preserve and the security measures specific to a dedicated email account.
- Google for Nonprofits: eligibility (in French): for France, a nonprofit organization published in the Journal officiel des associations or any other French legal publication; the page does not mention CSEs.