COVID-19 & Employee on CDI contract via TESE

Hi,

We employ a local woman to help us on a regular basis with the running of our busy Gite & Table d’Hotes. I am running the business under the micro-entrepreneur scheme, and she is employed under the TESE scheme, with a CDI contract.

Given the COVID-19 situation, we have had to tentatively cancel all of our events from mid march onwards. As a result, we no longer need her services. Where do we stand legally at this point with respect to her contract. There is nothing in her contract, or about her employment that stipulates the number of hours per month, rather, we just have her work for us on an ad-hoc basis when we need the help.

I am aware of the Activité Partielle (AP) scheme, and have studied the situation. From what I can see, if we decide to keep her on, in ‘chomage’ during the COVID crisis, we would be required to pay her as if she was working normally for us (her rate wouldn’t change since she was already on SMIC brut 10,15€/h., and we would still have to pay the social charges as per normal) based on last years hours for the same period. The AP scheme will refund us 70% of that wage, and the scheme can be used for up to 12 months (given the COVID situation).

My questions are:

1) Have I got the above AP notions about right?
2) Are we obliged to do this? Could we also end the contract and let her go at this point?

Ideally we would like to do keep her on, and use the AP scheme, but I want to know exactly where we stand in terms of our rights to just end the contract.

Thanks.