parental presence leave increases to 620 days

It was a request regularly put on the table by the associations and which has finally just been heard: the reform of the law concerning the improvement of the conditions of parental presence from a sick child was adopted on Thursday, November 4. The ratified text, submitted by the deputy Paul Cristophe of the Agir ensemble party, was accepted without modification and unanimously by the National Assembly and the Senate.

For employed parents whose child has a pathology requiring sustained support, daily life is far from being a walk in the park. The law in force allows a parent to make himself available to accompany a child seriously ill, injured or disabled, without losing its use and maintaining a source of income.

Until then, the law provided that a salaried parent could benefit from 310 days of absence spread over a period of 3 years. Problem: in most cases, the 14 months were exhausted from the start of parental presence leave, forcing parents to wait until the end of 3 years to request another. Ratification of the text now provides for double the days off, but also increase the allowance daily parental presence.

A double reform

Thanks to this reform, parents of seriously ill children will now be able to be absent for 620 days during the 3 years of parental presence leave, the condition being to obtain a new medical certificate as well as an agreement from the medical control service.

During these days of absence, the salaried parents benefited from a daily allowance in order to compensate for the loss of income. This allowance goes from 43 to 58 euros (for a person as a couple) and 52 euros for a single person. There remains room for progress regarding a device that only concerns private sector employees: a draft amendment for civil servants should see the light of day in 2022.

Adrien Taquet, Secretary of State for Children and Families, welcomed “a text long awaited by families, professionals and associations”.