Offering days off to a co-worker whose child is sick may soon become legal. The senators are indeed looking today at a bill already passed by Parliament in January 2012, but which has been waiting since then for the senators to study it in turn.
The law currently only provides for three days of absence per year for sick children. For the most important situations, each employee has the possibility of requesting parental presence leave (without pay) for 310 working days over three years.
If this law is passed, the parents of a sick child under the age of 20 – with a medical certificate attesting to its seriousness – will be able to legally receive the RTT of their colleagues and their 5th week of paid leave.
Ease the burden on parents
This bill was inspired by the story of Christophe Germain, an employee of the Badoit company, whose son Mathys fought for four years against liver cancer. Even if it was not yet legal, he had received 170 days of leave as a gift from his colleagues, which had enabled him to accompany his son until the end of his fight against the disease.
“It’s a simple project that costs nothing, neither to the company nor to society. And it’s a nice gesture!” UMP Senator Catherine Deroche, also vice-president of the Social Affairs Committee, told Le Parisien. It is she who will present this project to the Senate today in the hope of “providing the legislative means” to lighten the burden of families with one of their children who is seriously ill.
