User:PankhuriP/Parental Leave

I will be updating the section on Parental leave policies by countries (6) to include information on parental leave in France (6.2)

Parental leave in France (Le Congé Parental) refers to the system of leave that is guaranteed to both fathers and mothers in cases of either childbirth or adoption. The maternity leave, the number of weeks a biological mother is allowed to leave work is 16 weeks in France—6 weeks before birth and 10 weeks post birth. Maternity leave is mandatory and it complete renouncement of the leave is forbidden .The paid parental and home care leave that is available to French mothers is 26 weeks which raises the total leave weeks for women to 42 weeks. For fathers, paid paternity leave period is 11 days for one child and 18 days for two or more children. 26 weeks of leave are available to French fathers to take paid parental and home care leave. This brings the effective leave period for French fathers to 28 weeks, one of the highest in Europe. However, it is important to note that in the 26 week period the payment rate is 13.7% of original wages which brings the effective number of full-rate paid weeks to 3.6 weeks only.

In 2017, a group of men started an online petition to increase the length of paid paternity leave from the current 11 consecutive days to 4 weeks. A survey shows that more than 57% of respondents indicated that the length of paternity leave was sufficient. However, 63% of respondents between the ages of 18-24 and 60% of respondents between the ages of 25-34 indicated that they wanted to increase the length of paternity leave. Just 4% of the parental leave taken up by French parents is taken by men.

In the case of adoption, new parents are entitled to 10 weeks of leave which begins 10 days prior to the expected adoption day. If the total number of dependent children in a family will be at at least three after the adoption, then the parents receive 18 weeks of leave. If a family is adopting multiple children, the parents are entitled up to 22 weeks of leave. The leave can be shared between two parents or taken up by one. However, the laws incentivize parents to share the leave since if both parents take some of leave, the total amount of leave can be extended.

Category:Parental leave by country