Are you sure? This is a quite common practice for businesses to put the fired employees on paid leave until the contract is terminated, I would be really surprised if that would not be possible in France.
Article L1234-5 [1] of French Labor Code looks like it is possible.
Paid leave is entirely different. Paid leave is, well, leave. You do not have to show up to the office, unable to do anything.
L1234-5 (which is a very nice number) merely says that you have to pay the employee a compensation if the préavis is not respected, equal to the amount of days the employee would have worked, in addition to everything else (severance package, etc). It gets more complicated in the case of massive layoffs, because the CSE/lawyers get involved, and for a 50+ employee company firing over 10 employees, a plan de sauvegarde de l'emploi is put into place, which lasts multiple months.
How is it different? If you are on paid leave, you are not supposed to do any work. For security reasons your access can and should be restricted for this period.
The only context in which you can be technically still employed but be refused access to your work tools is if you are suspended for a grave mistake. Abuse this at your own risk, as the employee isn't paid in the mean time and will very likely get tribunal-happy. Any other concept (paid leave, maternity leave, vacation leave, * leave) means you are still an employee of the company and the company is legally obligated to give you access to your work tools.
On leave, you are trusted as an employee to not do any work. Anything you do will be your own responsibility, or eventually the employer's responsibility to refuse any work you hand over. You are also not covered by the company's insurance on your leave. Your company cutting off access is a clear breach of contract.
Can you refer to a specific regulation or legal precedent proving this point in clear words?
This does sound non-sensical to me. If someone is not working, there should not be any entitlement to access.
To give you an example: let’s say a factory is temporarily closed due to lack of supply materials or modernization and workers are put on paid leave. Are those workers allowed to visit their workplace to access their tools? If not, why digital workers should have this privilege when they are on paid leave?
L1234-5 (which is a very nice number) merely says that you have to pay the employee a compensation if the préavis is not respected, equal to the amount of days the employee would have worked, in addition to everything else (severance package, etc). It gets more complicated in the case of massive layoffs, because the CSE/lawyers get involved, and for a 50+ employee company firing over 10 employees, a plan de sauvegarde de l'emploi is put into place, which lasts multiple months.