Apprenticeship mediator covers working conditions, CFA keeps training 6 months

Apprenticeship mediation now reads as a single front door: the médiateur de l'apprentissage helps the employer and the apprentice settle disputes about working conditions amicablyService Public, and the same mediator is the mandatory first step when the apprentice wants to walk away after the first weeks in the companyService Public. Pedagogical questions, such as the content of theoretical or practical training, stay outside the mediator's remit.

Any party can call on the mediator at any moment over a working-conditions disputeService Public — safety at work is the named example — with the aim of an agreed solution; if mediation produces no agreement, the employment contract simply continues. The mediator is designated by the chambers according to the company's sector, found through the directory, or through the designated mediation service for public-sector apprentices outside industry and commerce. A minor acts through a legal representative, and where the representative does not answer, the mediator steps in within fifteen calendar days to seek consent to the rupture.

Rupture follows the 45-day line. Within the first 45 days, consecutive or not, of practical training in the company, either side can end the contractLegifrance in writing. After that line, termination needs a written agreement, a statutory exit route — the apprentice's diploma with one month's written notice, the employer's action for faute grave, inaptitude, force majeure or definitive CFA exclusion under the personal-dismissal procedure, or the liquidator's noticeService Public — or the apprentice's own initiative through mediationLegifrance: the apprentice first applies to the mediator, tells the employer after at least five calendar days, and the contract ends after at least seven calendar days, with no need for the mediator's agreement.

Losing the contract does not end the trainingService Public. The centre de formation d'apprentis keeps the apprentice in theoretical training for six monthsService Public and helps find a new employer able to complete the cycle, with the apprentice holding stagiaire de la formation professionnelle status and kept social protection in the meantime. The employer notifies the rupture to the Opco without delay.

Legal basis is articles L. 6222-18 and L. 6222-18-2 of the Code du travail on ending the apprenticeship contract and the six-month training continuation with a new-employer searchLegifrance, article L. 6222-39 on the consular mediator for execution and rupture disputes, and article L. 6231-2 on the centre's mission toward apprentices whose contract breaks.