When their child is born, fathers currently have 11 days. A report submitted Tuesday, September 11 to the government recommends to increase it to two or three weeks and make it at least partly mandatory.
Currently, seven out of ten fathers take a "paternity and childcare" leave of 11 consecutive days for a single birth and 18 days for a multiple birth. Introduced in 2002, this optional scheme, compensated by the Health Insurance according to the salary, supplements the compulsory three-day birth holiday, at the expense of the employer.
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In a report, commissioned in March by the Prime Minister, the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) recommends favoring a scenario of "strengthening" of this leave. It considers that, "if (its) duration remained unchanged" , significant progress would be "unlikely" in terms of "division of labor within the couple" and "professional equality" .
Increase birth leave from 3 to 5 days
The authors therefore propose to increase the duration of the paternity leave to two or three weeks (instead of 11 calendar days, ie a little less than two weeks at the present time), and at the same time to bring to five working days (instead of three ) the compulsory birth leave, payable by the employer.
In total, the birth / paternity leave would therefore be increased to three or four weeks, depending on the option chosen. Such a reform would imply an extra cost of 133 million euros for the National Family Allowance Fund (CNAF), in the option at three weeks, and $ 331 million in the four-week option.
The authors do not quantify the extra cost for employers, but suggest that "the increase in the number of days of birth leave, decided by law, could be offset by a reduction in the number of days granted for marriage or Pacs, negotiated by agreement collective " .
Paternity leave partly obligatory?
The report further proposes that the taking of paternity leave be made at least partly mandatory. "An obligation introduced over a short period would favor the taking of leave by fathers who previously abstained, and guilt over those who wish to take it for the entire duration," said Igas, for whom "past the "first time" it would be natural for a minister in France to take paternity leave, as in the Nordic countries " .
Several petitions and tribunals have called in recent months for a review of paternity leave, considered "too short to be effective" . A long-standing feminist demand, carried by more and more men.