Holiday allowance reform proposed
Under the current rules, employees often have to wait a year before they can take paid leave
FRENCH MPs are to debate whether to change the rules that currently prevent employees taking paid holiday in their first year at work.
The president of the Socialist group in the National Assembly, Bruno Le Roux, and fellow Socialist MP Marie-Françoise Clergeau, are behind the proposed change, which they hope will be discussed in parliament this autumn.
Under the current rules, staff starting work at a company typically accumulate 2.5 days of paid leave per month - but they cannot use it until the following year.
The year typically runs from June to May, but can vary if workplace agreements are in place.
Staff can take unpaid leave at present, or "borrow" a day's leave from their following year's entitlement. The proposed rule change would make it possible to take pro-rata paid leave as soon as an employee has spent one month at a company.
Ms Clergeau said: "These days, more and more people are moving jobs and regions. Sometimes they have to wait nearly two years before they can take a paid holiday."
She said the current rules were causing unnecessary complication and confusion in payroll departments and should be based on a normal calendar year.
The MPs behind the reform have also suggested that holiday entitlement earned in the last quarter of the year can be carried forward to the first half of the following year.
