A communicating vessel operation. The planned reduction in family benefits – that is, the change from 14 to 18 years in the increase in subsidies – will make it possible to finance the new “birth leave” included in the draft Social Security budget, the Minister of Health stated on Wednesday.
This “additional birth leave” of two months per parent, paid at 70% of the net salary in the first month and 60% in the second month, is a “self-financing” measure, within the framework of the budgetary seriousness proposed” in the social security financing bill (PLFSS) for 2026, indicated the Minister of Health, Stéphanie Rist, questioned by the Senate Social Affairs Committee in the framework of the examination of the budget texts.
This measure does not cause an additional deficit for Social Security: the shift of the increase in family benefits from the child’s age of 14 to the child’s age of 18 (still paid from the second child, editor’s note) “makes it possible to finance the birth leave for four months, which, I want to remind you, is well paid”, which “was the commitment” of the Government, he continued.
According to the newspaper Le Parisien, this change in the increase will allow the family branch to save 200 million euros.
Also questioned about the new exceptional tax on complementary sickness insurance, initially planned at 2.05% and which could increase to 2.25% – or 1.1 billion euros – to finance the suspension of the pension reform, the minister stressed that this Social Security budget proposes “a shared effort” between all actors to restore finances, in particular “complementary organizations, insured persons or pharmaceutical industry laboratories.”
Source: BFM TV
