That's in the article, but how true that is I don't know. You'd assume the details would be public record somewhere, but I don't know enough about France's laws to tell.
How is that you might ask? Well, when you're suing your ex-company you go to a special trial called "prud'hommes" (like "safety-men") which is constituted by both employees and employers. You are judged by your peers. Prud'Hommes trials are long and decisions are rarely contested by the public opinion in France, even by employers. Employers can win at prud'hommes trials, they do when they respect the law.
Also I'd like to point out that this is the 4th CEO change for Mandriva in something like 8 years. At some point the choices that some of the CEOs made were so bad that the investors forced them to publicly communicate with the community (for Mandriva the Linux community in France is extremely strong so it might be interesting to keep it updated and involved...). Basically the last CEO seems to have made some hard but good choices for the company but is paying for the mistakes of it's predecessors (so now he tries to save it's reputation by telling his side of the story which is understandable). Anyway, the company stays responsible when a bad CEO leaves and a new one comes along.
"C'est la vie".
So you are right, employees do not "stay forever in a company" but they do make it really really hard to adjust your staffing to your business.
I'm frightened of hiring the first person in my startup, precisely because I can't get rid of them and an upset employee can draw lifetime savings in lawyer fees, penalties and fines. Therefore if you could convince me that Prud'hommes and French employment rules can be fair and deterministic, and make me meet bosses who reckon the Prudhommes took a fair position, you would literally create at least one job.
Apart from that, you are right that some bosses aren't nice and we don't known enough about Mandriva to judge.
You have 7 months to fire your employee without even giving a reason. That seems fair enough to judge someone.
I don't know if it's a slip of the tongue or a figure of speech or whatnot, but you are already showing suspicion and disrespect for your future employees in saying that you won't be able to 'get rid of them'. You want to be your own boss and created your own company, that's fine ; you owe nothing to anyone , great for you. If you take an employee though, you'll be owing something to someone, who will become your subordinate and work for your profit. You will pay them less than they produce in value. You will choose when and how much to raise their salary. You will be able to put pressure on them, tell them they don't work good enough, you will assess them, and judge them. They will work 6 months for you in trial period when you have complete right to 'get rid of them' with no justification. And then yes, they might earn their right to have a stable relationship with you, because they also have a right to a stable life, with stable income, so that they also can make life plans. If you are not in position to provide that, you should contract with freelance workers until you are sure you can.
If you do things right, though, and consult regularly with a lawyer when you need to create, alter or end an employment, there is no reason things will go wrong. There are a lot of obligations from an employer that, when not followed to the rule, can be taken as an advantage by a well counselled employee. So choose a good lawyer, not an old one (they generally don't work themselves anymore and make younger ones work for them - and are more expensive), with specialty in social law who does not defend only employers. (I might be able to refer to a good one in Toulouse if needed.)
It is generally considered that prud'hommes courts are prone to strange decisions, because the prud'hommes counselors are not professional judges, but a. you can appeal (it costs 35€), b. you don't risk much if you follow sound legal counsel, c. the aim is to not have to get there, and you have plenty of room to have a fruitful relationship with your employees. Respecting them is the first step.
There's no law out there with the disclosed intent of killing children, or making sure some people stay poor, or protecting a market from competition.
Every law is always 'for the good of the Universe and it's a wonder we survived this long without it'.
The only way we can judge a law is by its REAL consequences, not the PR surrounding it.
Be even more wary of believing a CEO's account of how he ran a company into bankruptcy is the fault of everyone but him.
Anyone from France able to comment?
In any case I think that legally, sometimes it is appropriate for businesses to come to an end... and not in the, lets separate our assets from our liability so that we can sell off everything, and keep the brand around kind of way, but in that corporations have more rights than living entities in a lot of ways.
I'm very pro business... but despite the spin, I'm unconvinced that anything that has happened in this case is necessarily a bad thing.
Uhm, what? Lindows became Linspire. Mandriva was originally Mandrake (renamed after merging with Conectiva). As far as I know, Lindows never had anything to do with Mandriva.