It was a promise from Emmanuel Macron in the face of the fall in the birth rate in France. The deputies of the Social Affairs Commission of the National Assembly approved, this Friday, October 31, the creation of a new birth leave, which will allow parents to take up to two additional months each to welcome their child.
This additional leave for birth, which would be added to the existing maternity and paternity leave, is one of the measures of the Social Security financing project (PLFSS) for 2026. This leave, announced in January 2024 by the President of the Republic, with a view to “demographic rearmament”, can be enjoyed by each parent simultaneously or alternatively with the other.
The duration of the leave is one or two months, at the discretion of the employee, and these durations cannot be “divided” into several shorter periods, the text specifies. The amount of compensation must be determined by decree, since the Government has indicated that up to 70% of the net salary will be compensated in the first month and 60% in the second. MoDem MP Anne Bergantz stated that she had presented an amendment to erase this decline from one month to the next, but that she had not considered it admissible.
Possibility of enjoying this permit part-time
Another amendment by rapporteur-general Thibault Bazin (LR) was adopted to allow the use of additional part-time birth leave to be authorised.
In his initiative he had the support of the socialist deputy Céline Thiébault-Martinez, who led with him an information mission on parental leave. “No doubt you know the effects of motherhood on women’s careers,” she said. “I think the idea of this part-time job is a way, for example, for women not to completely lose track, not to stray too far from their professional environment.”
This new birth leave will not replace parental leave, which can be enjoyed until the child turns three years old and allows you to receive about 400 euros per month. The adoption of this measure in committee is, however, only an indication and the deputies will have to confirm it next week in the chamber, where they will start from the Government’s initial text, a standard for budget texts.
Source: BFM TV
