Father's Day: these dads want a paternity leave of at least 30 days

What if the best gift to give to fathers was paternity leave worthy of the name? On the eve of this Sunday, June 21, the day when dads are celebrated, ten of them, committed and influencers, wrote a tribune and called for testimonies to spend 30 days instead of the current 11.

And the timing is perfect. At the beginning of the month, did the Secretary of State for Gender Equality, Marlène Schiappa, not decide in favor of such an extension? Already, in a report commissioned in 2018 by the Prime Minister, did the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (Igas) also recommend favoring a scenario of "strengthening" this leave? She considers that, "if (its) duration remained unchanged", significant progress would be "unlikely" in terms of "distribution of tasks within the couple" and "professional equality".

France "lagging behind at European level"

" It's exactly that ! There is a lot of talk about the extension of paternity leave, but it is still a long time coming, ”reacts Pascal Van Hoorne, creator of the blog Histoires de papas and co-author of the forum. According to him, France is "clearly lagging behind at European level". Spain, where paternity leave has been reduced to 8 weeks and should reach 16 weeks next year, and Portugal, where this one-month leave has been made compulsory, have joined the ambitions of Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway, where the father's absence from work is counted in months.

Currently, in France, seven fathers out of ten take this “paternity and childcare” leave, lasting 11 consecutive days for a single birth and 18 days for a multiple birth. Introduced in 2002, this optional system, compensated by Health Insurance according to salary, supplements the compulsory three-day birth leave, paid by the employer. “Eleven days, weekends included, it's still a big joke. It is not at all enough to bond with her baby and support the mother ”, judge Alexandre Marcel, creator of the blog“ Papa plume ”, a sort of diary of a father in the meanders of parenthood.

It was however at the end of these 11 days that he returned to work, after the birth of his daughter in 2018, frustration on the shoulder. Pascal Van Hoorne, he completely changed his career at the birth of his twins, three and a half years ago. Former manager in a large company where it was not possible to take time for his children, he now provides training, in particular with companies, to make them aware of the consideration of the personal life of employees. "Dads generally speak little but that does not mean that they do not have big on their hearts," insists Alexandre Marcel, another co-author of the tribune.

The proof: in two days almost 400 testimonies of fathers reached them. "We can see how paternity leave is a vector of discrimination," says Pascal Van Hoorne. Among those who manage to go beyond these 11 days by drawing from their own funds, those who have the chance to work in a company that offers a Parental Act, a month of 100% paid leave for the second parent (Editor's note: adopted by 328 companies) and the others… However, the arrival of a child is a tsunami for everyone. "

"One month is not expensive to pay"

The ten co-authors' commitment was born out of their personal stories. Patrice and Pascal took a long parental leave, Tristan benefited from a Scandinavian paternity leave of 5 months, Antoine was frustrated by his short paternity leave as a freelance… "In this forum, we ask for a month, and what not expensive paid! Where is the world after we are promised? Asks Frédéric Faurillon, one of the ten committed dads, better known on Instagram under the name of Vieux Bidule Machin, where his favorite subjects are father's life in particular and parenthood in general. Support for breastfeeding he talks about, postpartum depression too.

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“My wife made one and if I hadn't been there, she already told me that she would have hung herself over the baby phone. A baby is a couple project! I never say that I help my wife, I do my part, that's all. Unfortunately, it was a serious work accident that "allowed" him to stay for several months with his daughter, born in August 2018. Ironically, confinement, which was worrying for many, authorized the young dads whose children were born during this unprecedented period to see what paternity leave looked like over time.