Hybrid Working Support in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur

Remote Work in France: Where Are the Differences and Why?

Teleworking has definitively established itself in the French professional landscape. After experiencing a rapid boom during the health crisis, this practice has stabilized but reveals significant territorial, sectoral, and socio-professional disparities, creating an unequal geography of remote work.

A practice now established, with a dominant hybrid model

According to the latest official INSEE statistics, published in March 2025, 22% of employees in the French private sector practiced teleworking at least once a month in the first half of 2024. These teleworkers work on average 1.9 days per week remotely, confirming the adoption of a hybrid model rather than full-time teleworking.

This stabilization around 22-24% since 2022 contrasts with the exceptional peaks during the health crisis, when nearly 28% of employees teleworked in 2021. Intensive teleworking (3 days or more per week), which peaked at 18% in 2021, concerns only 5% of employees in 2023 according to DARES.

Between 2019 and 2023, the share of employees who teleworked at least occasionally nearly tripled, rising from 9% to 26%, reflecting a structural transformation of the French labor market.

Socio-professional divides: a social digital gap

Data analysis reveals striking socio-professional disparities. Nearly two-thirds of executives (63%) telework, compared to only 10% of employees and virtually no workers. This inequality is explained by the nature of the jobs: 80% of executive positions are teleworkable, compared to only 21% for employees.

Even more revealing, among employees in teleworkable positions, 13% cannot telework due to employer decision, compared to less than 3% for executives. This difference suggests unequal bargaining power and variable employer trust depending on professional categories.

32% of employees earning 4,000 euros or more per month telework, compared to only 22% of those earning between 1,500 and 1,999 euros.

Geographical disparities: Paris versus regions

Territorial differences constitute another major divide in French teleworking. Large companies (34% teleworkers) far outpace SMEs (18%), creating disparities between metropolitan areas and rural territories where small structures dominate.

The information-communication (75% teleworkers) and financial services (60%) sectors concentrate a large proportion of teleworkable jobs, these sectors being mainly located in large metropolises, particularly in Île-de-France.

34% of employees living more than 100 km from their workplace telework, compared to 22% of those living less than 5 km away. This reality mechanically favors regions where commuting distances are significant.

The spillover effect and organizational determinants

INSEE data reveal a particularly interesting spillover effect: in companies with more than 40% executives, 20% of non-executive employees telework, compared to only 8% in companies with less than 20% executives. This “contagion” of teleworking suggests that corporate culture and team social composition strongly influence access to remote work.

Company agreements also play a crucial role: while in 2019, two-thirds of agreements limited teleworking to one day per week, in 2022 only one-third maintain this restriction, and nearly one-fifth allow three days or more.

Demographic and social characteristics

25% of women telework compared to 19% of men with similar characteristics, but paradoxically, parents of young children (under 6) do not telework more than others. On the other hand, 24% of parents with children aged 6 to 17 telework, compared to 22% of others, suggesting that teleworking responds more to family organizational needs than childcare for very young children.

25% of employees without managerial responsibility telework, compared to 22% of managers, and the size of the home matters: 26% of those with more than 30 m² per person telework, compared to 22% of those with less than 20 m².

Challenges for territorial and social equality

These disparities raise major issues of spatial planning and social equity. Teleworking, far from being the great equalizer hoped for, reproduces and sometimes amplifies existing inequalities: between Paris and the regions, between executives and employees, between large companies and SMEs.

Nearly one in five employees in teleworkable positions did not wish to telework, and 11% would have liked to but could not, revealing both room for improvement and resistance. About a third of employees wish to continue or start teleworking, representing significant potential but sociologically biased.

The question of a “territorial comeback” through teleworking thus remains largely theoretical: the most teleworkable jobs remain concentrated in metropolises, and workers in the regions have less access to positions allowing remote work.

Which evolution?

The hybrid model of two days per week seems to have become the reference, with 54.9% of 2022 company agreements providing for this arrangement. This stabilization suggests a balance between employee aspirations, organizational constraints, and maintaining social bonds within the company.

However, tensions persist: 46% of HR departments plan to allow two days of telework in 2025, but some companies are attempting a return to more in-person work, creating resistance among 56.7% of affected teleworkers who see it as a challenge to social achievements.

Teleworking in France thus maps contemporary inequalities: geographical, social, and sectoral. Far from being an equalizing factor, it tends to reproduce existing hierarchies, creating new divides between those who can telework and those who cannot. The challenge for public policy will be to democratize this practice while preserving social and territorial cohesion.

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