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Low reported severity Media Coverage

France: ex-employees say Alsace firm Plus que pro used AI to screen out job-seekers' CVs by age, sex and African-origin surnames; firm says it never ran

Plus que pro, a company founded in 2014 in Schiltigheim near Strasbourg that recruits franchised sales agents, is accused by three former employees interviewed by AFP of building a recruitment tool that screened candidates on unlawful criteria with the help of AI. According to one of them, in spring 2025 the company collected about 740,000 sales CVs from job platforms such as Hellowork and reduced them to 130,000 in five days with ChatGPT after applying discriminatory filters. AFP says it consulted the prompt, which told the AI to estimate each candidate's age, keep those under 55, infer age from the baccalaureate year and exclude those under 27, and require that the candidate's surname not be of African origin, and a results table listing a rejection reason against each name, such as "too young" or "too old", with women identified by first name marked "Exception". A former employee said that all the sales agents retained had the same profile, white and in their forties; another said the AI only systematised a practice already established when CVs were sorted by hand. One former employee says he has referred the matter to the CNIL and the Défenseur des droits; the CNIL said it could not comment on an individual case. The company denies ever asking anyone to build discriminatory criteria into its tools; it acknowledges that one version of the tool contained developments contrary to its specifications, but says that version was never put into service, evaluated no candidate and was developed by a former employee acting on their own initiative, who has since been dismissed. Rue89 Strasbourg separately reported, from working documents and testimony, that the company sorted thousands of CVs on criteria of gender and supposed origin without the candidates' knowledge between 2023 and 2026; its subscriber-only report could be read only in part.

AI system
ChatGPT (reported)
Occurred
2025
Reported
9 October 2026
Event location
France
What the AI did
Made a decision about the person
Reported harm
Professional Harm
Whose AI use
An institution’s AI use
Setting
Work
Evidence
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution disputed · 3 sources, 2 underlying accounts
6 claims: 6 reported. 3 open questions
People reported harmed
Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

AI system as recorded: A recruitment tool built from late 2024 by the company, which sent instructions to a generative AI to screen collected CVs; a former employee quoted by AFP names ChatGPT ("ChatGTP" in the AFP text).

Reported harm

According to former employees and documents described by AFP, job-seekers whose CVs were collected from job platforms were screened out of consideration for franchised sales-agent positions by an AI filter applying age, sex and surname-origin criteria. No individual rejected candidate is identified in the inspected AI-related reporting and the number excluded on those criteria is not reported. The company says the discriminatory version was never used on any candidate.

Outcome

Ongoing

A former employee says he has referred the matter to the CNIL and the Défenseur des droits; the CNIL told AFP it could not comment on an individual case. The company denies the accusations and says the developer of the contested version has been dismissed. No regulatory decision or legal action is reported.

What remains unknown

  • How many candidates were excluded on discriminatory criteria by the AI filter, and whether the filter ran on the collected CVs as the former employees say or never ran as the company says.
  • Whether the Rue89 Strasbourg investigation ties the sorting system (named Vortex) to the AI tool; its subscriber-only text was not read in full.
  • The outcome of the CNIL and Défenseur des droits referrals.

What the evidence supports

AI involvement: reported. AFP reports that it consulted the prompt sent to the AI, which instructed it to estimate candidates' ages and exclude those over 55 or under 27 and to require that surnames not be of African origin, and a results table assigning a rejection reason to each name. A former employee says the CVs were cut from 740,000 to 130,000 in five days "grâce à ChatGTP" after the discriminatory filters were applied. The AI output (the per-candidate rejection decisions) is the described connection to the candidates' exclusion. The company says the discriminatory version was never used on any candidate.

6 claims: 6 reported. What the statuses mean

Reported A former employee says the company collected about 740,000 sales CVs from job platforms in spring 2025 and reduced them to 130,000 in five days with ChatGPT after applying discriminatory filters.

Causal attribution. A former employee's account relayed by AFP.

  • boursorama.com(opens in new tab) supports · French
    'quelque 740.000 CV de commerciaux. Chiffre ensuite ramené à 130.000 en seulement cinq jours, grâce à ChatGTP, après application de filtres discriminants, raconte un autre ex-salarié.'
Reported AFP consulted the prompt, which told the AI to exclude candidates over 55 or under 27 and those whose surname was of African origin, and a results table assigning a rejection reason to each name, with women marked "Exception".

Causal attribution. Documents described by AFP; the record does not reproduce them and AFP does not say how many candidates the table covers.

  • boursorama.com(opens in new tab) supports · French
    'et à exclure les moins de 27 ans.' and 'il faut (que) le nom de famille du candidat ne SOIT PAS d' and 'un motif de rejet figure en face de chaque nom: "Hors cible - trop jeune", ou encore "Trop âgé". Les femmes, repérées à leur prénom, sont renvoyées à leurs chères études avec la mention "Exception".'
  • 20min.ch(opens in new tab) supports · French
    'un motif de rejet figure en face de chaque nom'
Reported A former employee said all the sales agents retained had the same profile, white and in their forties.

Causal attribution. A former employee's statement.

Reported The company denies asking anyone to build discriminatory criteria into its tools; it says a version containing developments contrary to its specifications was never put into service, evaluated no candidate and was built by a since-dismissed former employee.

Causal attribution. The company's statement to AFP, recorded as contrary evidence.

  • boursorama.com(opens in new tab) supports · French
    'contenait des développements contraires à notre cahier des charges et aux consignes de la direction' and 'a jamais été mise en service et n' and 'a servi à évaluer aucun candidat'
Reported One former employee says he has referred the matter to the CNIL and the Défenseur des droits; the CNIL said it could not comment on an individual case.

Causal attribution. Former employee's statement and the CNIL response, via AFP.

  • boursorama.com(opens in new tab) supports · French
    'Le troisième affirme avoir saisi la Commission nationale de l' and 'ainsi que le défenseur des droits' and 'a indiqué ne pas pouvoir communiquer sur un cas individuel.'
Reported Rue89 Strasbourg reported, from working documents and testimony, that the company sorted thousands of CVs on criteria of gender and supposed origin without the candidates' knowledge, between 2023 and 2026.

Causal attribution. A separate investigation; its readable portion does not mention AI, so it supports the discriminatory sorting and not the AI role.

  • rue89strasbourg.com(opens in new tab) supports · French
    'Plus que pro a trié des milliers de CV sur des critères de genre et d' and 'entre 2023 et 2026, Plus que pro a mis en place un système de discrimination pour choisir ses futurs franchisés, basé sur l'

Sources

3 sources inspected, from 2 underlying accounts. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.

How the sources were read, and where the events happened

Read in French by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-11; quotations in the record are the original French and the English renderings in public text are the research agent's own translation. No human translator or reviewer inspected the text. AFP dispatch on Boursorama (AMP page), HTTP 200, full text retained. Applies to s1.

Read in French by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-11; quotations in the record are the original French and the English renderings in public text are the research agent's own translation. No human translator or reviewer inspected the text. 20 minutes republishes the AFP dispatch and credits AFP; HTTP 200. Applies to s2.

Read in French by the research agent (an AI) on 2026-10-11; quotations in the record are the original French and the English renderings in public text are the research agent's own translation. No human translator or reviewer inspected the text. Subscriber-only investigation: only the standfirst and opening paragraphs were readable (HTTP 200); the rest, including any AI detail, was not inspected. Applies to s3.

Event countries: France. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.

AFP places the company and the former employees who ran the screening in Schiltigheim, near Strasbourg, France. The candidates' countries are not stated; the CVs came from job platforms such as Hellowork. No court proceeding is reported.

Reviewed for publication 2026-10-11: Published as an automated hiring decision case: AFP describes a prompt instructing an AI to reject candidates by age and surname origin and a results table of per-candidate rejection reasons, and a former employee names ChatGPT as the filter that cut 740,000 CVs to 130,000. Rue89 Strasbourg separately reports discriminatory CV sorting at the company. The company denies that the discriminatory version was used on any candidate, so causation is recorded as disputed and all claims as reported.

People described

Job-seekers whose CVs the company collected from job platforms to recruit franchised sales agents and who were, according to former employees, screened out by the AI filter on grounds of age, sex or the presumed origin of their surname. None is identified in the AI-related reporting.

People reported harmed in this case

Not reliably quantifiable from the sources

No reliable count of people harmed. The 740,000 and 130,000 figures are CVs collected and retained, as described by a former employee; the difference includes candidates removed for any reason and is not a count of people excluded on discriminatory criteria. Numeric fields are zero placeholders.

Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.

Tags

#hiring#recruitment#discrimination#chatgpt#cv-screening#france#alsace

Cite this case

Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.

APA

NOPE. (2026). France: ex-employees say Alsace firm Plus que pro used AI to screen out job-seekers' CVs by age, sex and African-origin surnames; firm says it never ran. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2025-alsace-franchise-recruiter-chatgpt-cv-filter-age-sex-origin-criteria-ex-employees-allege

BibTeX

@misc{2025_alsace_franchise_recruiter_chatgpt_cv_filter_age_sex_origin_criteria_ex_employees_allege,
  title = {France: ex-employees say Alsace firm Plus que pro used AI to screen out job-seekers' CVs by age, sex and African-origin surnames; firm says it never ran},
  author = {NOPE},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {AI incidents},
  url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2025-alsace-franchise-recruiter-chatgpt-cv-filter-age-sex-origin-criteria-ex-employees-allege}
}

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