Yes there is a minimum of 8 weeks in France ( with at least 6 postpartum). Nobody can legally employ you during that period.
Otherwise we have 16 fully paid weeks (mostly paid by social security but employers complete if you’re over the social security limit). From the third kid in the family you get 26 weeks. Which is what I got when I had my second child because my husband had already another kid and we have shared custody.
I just cannot get my head around no maternity leave. My mum got 3 months for each of her 6 kids and she lives in one of the poorest countries in Africa. She had her first in the 80´s.
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Whoooa. Maybe it’s the American in me but I’m like NO ONE CAN TELL SOMEONE NOT TO EMPLOY ME JUST BECAUSE I PUSHED OUT A KID, THAT IS RIDICULOUS.
Yea, America is behind countries with far less wealth as far as worker rights/entitlements. We’re very bad at this.
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Here the battle is for paternity leave and Canada is our model 
. They recently passed a law to get it from 11 days to 28 days and I still find it laughable. How can women not be the primary caretakers then and how can we get even in the workplace. After my maternity leave I was made to report to another male colleague who had a promotion for ‘taking in the load’ while I was absent. I had been doing the same job for 2 years. MG managed to get a raise and promotion while I was home with the baby. Now reading all your posts make me appreciate ‘my privilege’. At least I was paid and my job was waiting for me when I returned. I even took another 6 months parental leave on top of the 26 weeks. It was unpaid but they had to keep my job until my return ( you can take until the kid 3rd birthday). I looked for another job and resigned during my parental leave. I wasn’t going to report to that moron 
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Yeah I’m occasionally pissed by this but I think it’s meant to be a protection because otherwise employers will find a way to get you back to work as soon as possible.
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Considering our president is saying things like “Get your husbands back to work”, it’s no suprise that we are so bad at this. The people in charge clearly still think a women’s place is in the kitchen, not at a workplace.
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Do people that let their kids go for adoption or have stillbirths ever try to push back or conceal a pregnancy in order to go back to work earlier? I wonder about the repercussions that women face in the workplace for having kids/taking leave and if they might not want to have to take that much time off.
Maybe that’s just my american bizarre work ethic talking.
I know it’s really hard to fire people in France though, and there’s not the culture of shaming people for taking time off that there is here. (if I took 2 full weeks for vacation at my job, I would hear about it.)
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Hello. Verrrrry sorry. I can’t even explain UK Benefits to myself… lol
Am in the process of applying for something else right now (temporarily bcos I sure could use the help), and… I’ve had to push forward the deadline five times. Sat with the form beside me right now. Fifteen questions. Trying and trying to get my brain around it. I ought to be filling it in right now.
Here’s what I do know: The Tories did an incredible, bang-up magic trick, by saying to their voter base: ‘Look over here, over here!! Yes, here we are, simplifying all the existing benefits by rolling them into one, which we’ll call Universal Credit, to make it sound less like a benefit! Sensible of us, eh? That’s bound to save lots of government money right?’
And meanwhile, the evil Tory sleight of hand behind the scenes was enacting swinging cuts in most/all of those benefits, and changing the criteria, etc… Not that most of their voter-base would mind that either, because in their opinion everyone who needs benefits is a freeloader (until they need them, in which case they are super-surprised about the reality vs the Daily Mail fantasy).
Truth is, my money coming in went DOWN when I innocently took up a part time job in 2017 (because I do try and sort myself out), and was subsequently posted over to Universal Credit as a result of that change. And suddenly there I was working 18.5 hours a week in a tough public-facing job, while paying petrol and parking to get to work, plus rent, energy and everything else, and living on porridge twice a day to try and keep going. Now I am trying to set up a business to get off this thing. And as we know, I’m having to use the foodbank. It’s like being at the bottom of a well. And meanwhile somebody turned the gravity up.
If they do manage to look after new parents, and parents generally, better than other people, then hallelujah, and that’s how it should be. However, it would not surprise me in the slightest if some policy wonk somewhere is trying to work out how to reduce that support as we speak post Brexit.
This is the party which is currently trying not to give poor kids meals over the upcoming school holidays after all.
Sorry that people who have just given birth are having to go back to work far, far too soon. Seems like any kind of caring is utterly devalued across so many supposedly ‘developed’ societies huh? Why? Because the unkind people in the patriarchy think that caring is a weakness, and therefore doesn’t deserve money. When the truth is, not one man-jack of us, no-one, gets very far without it.
Sometimes. Many times. I despair. … And now back to the form… bleh 
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Different country, I know, but made me think of this
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I am very grateful that one thing Congress managed to pass in this last cycle was paid parental leave for federal employees. It needs to be extended to all citizens, but I am selfishly glad to have it this time around. I’ll get 12 weeks fully-paid, without using any of my accrued leave. The last time around I had 8 weeks of leave accumulated between sick and annual, so that is what what I took.
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Yup. More double-speak George Orwell would instantly recognise. And the video is brilliantly done. Good share. Hmm…
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Just got around to watching that and WOW THAT’S WILD
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I’m not sure about the adoption process but every woman who gives birth has a right to maternity leave. There are specific rules about stillbirth. If there was a birth certificate (I think it’s over 22 weeks and more than 500kgs or something similar) then the mother will have a maternity leave otherwise she can have a medical leave. In my experience it’s not in the culture to rush back to work. Actually even after the maternity leave you can have more weeks off if you’re breastfeeding and are tired. It’s not in the culture either to fire people. You lose in raises and promotion ( when they’re based on performance otherwise it’s considered time worked and you have bonuses eg).
However I have to clarify that the maternity leave is paid only if you have contributed enough to social security (10 months minimal or some combination of part time I never checked out). I didn’t have any pay for my first. I arrived in France while pregnant and had never worked here. I couldn’t get a job during my ‘maternity leave’ but I didn’t have any income. I think students are similar they don’t get paid unless they have worked and contributed the minimum required to qualify.
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I’m curious how this would apply to those self-employed. Like if you run an etsy shop (or whatever an equivalent selling creative goods thing is in France), do you have to shut down during your mat leave? I would assume not?
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If you wish to get a paid maternity leave yes you have to stop for the minimal 8 weeks. It used to be 6 weeks but they are harmonizing the different types of social security services ( maternity leave, retirement, etc). However their indemnity is not entirely based on salary. It’s a flat rate. They also have another indemnity for the loss of revenue during that time ( called ‘ indemnités de repos maternel’); it’s paid at the 7th month and after the birth and it’s around 3500€.
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Here in Brazil, maternity leave lasts 4 months.
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