The leave necessary for employed parents when a child is stuck at home will soon be easier to obtain. They will just have to follow a new, simpler rule.
Working parents have all experienced this embarrassing situation one day, a source of tension with their employers. When he wakes up, the youngest is not in good shape. Impossible to take him to daycare or school. Stuck at home, we will have to take care of it or even have it examined and therefore take one or two days off. The tile will be coupled with an administrative burden: obtaining a doctor’s certificate to provide to your employer to justify your absence from work. All as quickly as possible and even within a day if possible.
This process, very complicated for employed parents with the shortage of appointments available in practices, could soon change. A text promising to change business rules should quickly be adopted in France. The objective: to make taking leave quicker and easier for parents, but also to simplify procedures and reduce paperwork for doctors, sometimes overwhelmed by requests for “non-essential” certificates.
A simple measure is therefore planned: replacing the medical certificate with a sworn statement from employees to their employers. An employee would thus have to write a simple letter or email in which he would certify on his honor that he must stay to take care of his child at home.
This letter has not yet been precisely established, but it should resemble a classic sworn statement, or even less formal depending on the company. Many sworn certificate templates are in any case available on the Web and will make life even easier for the parents concerned.
After a first favorable vote in the Senate, parliamentarians are on the verge of reaching an agreement on a final version of this measure which has every chance of succeeding. According to supporters of this change, this should allow doctors to free up time for more useful missions. On average, between an hour and a half and two hours would in fact be devoted to certificates each week!
However, the proposal is not unanimous. Concerns have been expressed on the business side: certain bosses, cited during the debates, consider that the certificate remains the most appropriate document, to avoid increased mistrust between employees and employers.
Practitioners also believe that the precious document is essential to certify the veracity of the absence of a parent in the company. The French Union for Free Medicine (UFML) believes that parents generally only need a medical certificate when a doctor has already examined their child.
As a reminder, the Labor Code currently provides that employees who need to be absent to care for a sick child benefit from three days of unpaid leave.