French reality TV contestants win employment rights

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French stars of tropical island reality show win right to overtime and holidays
Adam Sage in Paris
timesonline.co.uk

The future of reality TV is in doubt in France after the country’s Supreme Court ruled today that contestants were entitled to an employment contract, including overtime, holidays and damages for wrongful dismissal upon elimination. The court upheld a case brought by three contestants on the French version of Temptation Island, where scantily clad men and women seek to test the faithfulness of competing couples.

Anthony Brocheton, Marie Adamiak and Arno Laize said that their 12 days on an island off Mexico amounted to a job in terms of France’s notoriously strict labour laws, which stipulate that no one can be made to work more than 35 hours a week. They won €8,176 (£7,000) each in overtime after claiming that they had been on the go for 24 hours a day. They also won €817 for not being given a holiday, €500 for unfair dismissal and €1,500 for the wrongful termination of their contracts.

However, lawyers said they would not be entitled to the €16,000 in damages awarded by a lower tribunal after the Supreme Court rejected a suggestion that they had effectively been moonlighting. Judges said participants were bound by a “relationship of work” to reality TV production companies such as Glem, the French group which makes Temptation Island for the private TF1 channel It backed the judgment of an Employment Tribunal, which said: “Tempting a person of the opposite sex requires concentration and attention.” Maître Jérémie Assous, the lawyer for Mr Brocheton, Miss Adamiak and Mr Laize, said: “Production companies will no longer be able to dispose of contestants as they have done for years, 24 hours a day, making them do whatever they want.”

A total of 74 candidates from Temptation Island and other French reality TV shows have already launched legal proceedings and appear likely to win overtime and compensation as a result of the Supreme Court judgment. More than 600 people have taken part in Gallic reality TV shows since they arrived on French screens in the 1990s. Maitre Damien Celice, a lawyer for TF1, had warned the Supreme Court during the hearing that “there would be no more reality TV in France” if the contestants were given work contracts.

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Unfair dismissal? 'We hate you and want you out!' - that's not unfair... haha