Paid paternity leave in France will be doubled from 14 to 28 days starting next summer, and fathers will be required to take at least a week off work after their babies are born, President Emmanuel Macron announced this week, offering one of the more generous plans in Europe.
“When a baby arrives in the world, there is no reason it should be just the mother who takes care of it,” Mr. Macron said on Wednesday as he announced the plan, arguing that parents should have “more equality in sharing the responsibility from the first day.”
The announcement caps a year of debate in France about the first 1,000 days of a child’s life. In September, the neuropsychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik suggested in a report commissioned by Mr. Macron’s government that fathers should be able to take up to nine weeks’ paid leave.
Mr. Cyrulnik welcomed the extension announced by Mr. Macron, even though it is less ambitious than the report’s suggestion. “It’s a start. Things move gradually — they are not done abruptly,” Mr. Cyrulnik said on France Inter radio. “The presence of the father is much more important than we thought, much earlier than we believed.”
RobinC83 on September 25th, 2020 at 06:55 UTC »
As a dad, I can tell you from experience that we expect too much of moms the first weeks after giving birth. Not only they need a lot of time for their bodies to recover from the experience, but they also have a little one that needs 24hr care.
Well done France.
Method__Man on September 25th, 2020 at 06:11 UTC »
Imagine a society that values people, and especially familirs & children
hanskazan777 on September 25th, 2020 at 05:31 UTC »
One of the most generous of Europe?
laughs in Swedish