Sacrebleu! Apple fined for making French retail employees work late (Updated)

It's a rule of retail life that you often have to work long past closing time while you clean up or do inventory for the following day. But Apple Store employees in France won't have to do this anymore. As reported by the AFP (hat tip to the Verge), Apple has been ordered to stop asking its retail employees to work past 9pm—closing time—and must now pay €10,000 in damages to the unions who complained about the practice.

Six French labor unions had filed a complaint against Apple for having employees work as late as 11pm in order to prep the stores for the following day. This sounds completely normal to those of us who have worked in retail in the US, but French labor laws forbid requiring employees to work between 9pm and 6am (as well as Sundays, all day).

There are exceptions, of course: employees are allowed to work late only if the work they're performing is essential to the country's economic activity, or if they're providing social services. (One could try to argue that cleaning up the store for new iPhone buyers is essential to France's economy, but the French clearly don't see it that way.) Because Apple had been violating the labor law, a Paris court fined the company €10,000 (about US$13,000) plus €50,000 (about US$65,000) for every new violation, and another decision on the case is supposed to come down from the court on April 16.

Update: We've received some clarification of French labor laws from an Ars reader who asked not to be named. He says: "[W]orking past 8pm is of course allowed in France, no matter what is your activity sector. But if you ask your employees to work at these 'night' hours, you must follow a different paying scheme as the 'day' hours. The night hours are payed more than regular over time, if you work several night hours your employer must assure you that you will not work the day after, etc."

He went on to explain that Apple retail was not giving its employees the legal benefits of being required to work at night, arguing that its night hours were exceptional/rare.