France Maternity Leave Policy: Duration, Pay, and Job Protection

France’s maternity leave policy gives a working mother a minimum of 16 weeks of paid leave funded almost entirely by Social Security, with the benefit calculated from her recent salary up to a monthly ceiling, and protection against dismissal that runs through the pregnancy, the leave, and 10 weeks after she returns to work.¹

How Long the Leave Lasts

The Labor Code sets the duration as a non-negotiable minimum that changes with the size of the family and whether the pregnancy is a multiple.

First or second child: 16 weeks total, 6 before the due date and 10 after birth.
Third child or more: 26 weeks total, 8 before and 18 after.
Twins: 34 weeks total, 12 before and 22 after.
Triplets or more: 46 weeks total, 24 before and 22 after.

The postnatal portion is especially protected. An employer cannot pressure a mother to come back early, and the mother cannot waive it herself.¹

Moving Prenatal Weeks to After Birth

A mother can ask to shorten her prenatal leave by up to three weeks and add those weeks to the postnatal period. The request goes in writing to the health insurance fund, with a medical certificate confirming she is fit to keep working. The employer’s approval is not required. If she ends up on sick leave during the deferred weeks, the transfer is cancelled automatically and maternity leave starts from the first day of that sick leave.²

Extra Leave for Medical Complications

When the pregnancy involves complications such as gestational diabetes, risk of premature delivery, or severe hypertension, the treating doctor can prescribe up to two additional weeks of prenatal pathological leave. It can be taken in one block or split, but the two-week cap is firm and none of it can be moved to the postnatal period.³

A separate postnatal pathological leave of up to four weeks is available when recovery involves medical complications. It has to follow the standard postnatal leave with no gap. Compensation during those four weeks drops to 50% of the base daily salary rather than the higher maternity rate, though some collective agreements require the employer to make up the difference.

Who Qualifies

Paid maternity leave requires affiliation with the French Social Security system (Sécurité sociale) for at least six months before the due date, plus one of the following work or contribution thresholds:⁴

150 hours worked in the past 3 months, the usual path for employees on at least a third of full-time hours.
600 hours worked in the past 12 months, aimed at fixed-term, temp, and seasonal workers.
Earnings of at least 1,015 times the hourly minimum wage (about €12,200 in 2026) in the past 6 months, or 2,030 times (about €24,400) in the past 12 months.

Self-employed workers fall under a parallel system tied to the same six-month affiliation period, provided contributions are up to date with their social insurance fund.⁵

How Much You Get Paid

The health insurance fund (CPAM) pays a daily indemnity calculated from the mother’s average gross salary over the three months before leave began. Salary counts only up to the monthly Social Security ceiling, which is €4,005 in 2026.⁶

CPAM adds the last three months of gross pay (each month capped at €4,005), divides by 91.25, and subtracts a flat 21% for social contributions. That gives the net daily indemnity. At the ceiling, the daily payment reaches €104.02. The floor is €11.12 per day. Payments arrive every 14 days across the leave period.¹

For a mother earning well above the ceiling, €104.02 per day works out to roughly €3,120 per month, which can fall noticeably short of a regular paycheck. Many industries close that gap through collective bargaining agreements that require the employer to top the CPAM indemnity up to 100% of normal salary. Whether your sector does depends on the agreement covering your job.

The daily indemnities count as taxable income. The 21% CPAM withholds covers the CSG at 6.2% and the CRDS at 0.5%, which apply to replacement income in France.⁷ The payments still need to be declared on your annual return, but the withholding limits any surprise at tax time.

Declaring the Pregnancy and Requesting Leave

A doctor or midwife confirms the pregnancy during the first trimester at a prenatal exam and issues a pregnancy declaration form. That declaration must reach CPAM and the family allowance fund (CAF) before the end of the 14th week of pregnancy. Many practitioners now submit it electronically, which notifies both agencies at once.⁸

If you receive a paper form, send the pink section to CPAM and the two blue sections to CAF. Replacements are available through the Ameli online portal.

You also have to notify your employer in writing of the expected leave dates. There is no fixed statutory deadline for that notice, but sending it by registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt (LRAR) creates a legal record if a dispute comes up later. Once CPAM has your declaration, updating your profile on Ameli activates the indemnity payments so they start on the first day of leave.

Job Protection During and After Leave

The protected window is wide. An employer cannot dismiss you during pregnancy, during maternity leave, or during any paid vacation taken immediately afterward, and the protection continues for 10 weeks after those periods end. The narrow exceptions are serious misconduct unrelated to the pregnancy, or a genuine impossibility of maintaining the contract for reasons that have nothing to do with the pregnancy or birth.¹

On return, you are entitled to your previous position or an equivalent role at the same pay level. Any collective or average individual raises granted to your job category during your absence must be applied to your pay as well, so a long leave does not quietly erode your compensation relative to colleagues.¹

A mandatory examination with the occupational health service must take place within eight calendar days of your return to confirm fitness for duty.⁹

Breastfeeding Time at Work

For one year after the birth, a mother has the right to one hour per day during working hours to breastfeed or express milk, typically split into two 30-minute breaks. The right applies regardless of company size. Unless a collective agreement says otherwise, that hour is unpaid because it does not count as working time.

What the Other Parent Gets Separately

Maternity leave is only for the mother. The other parent has a separate set of entitlements: a three-working-day birth leave paid by the employer, followed by a mandatory four-calendar-day paternity leave, plus an optional 21 calendar days for a single birth or 28 for a multiple birth, to be used within six months and payable through CPAM on the same formula as maternity indemnities.¹⁰

New Supplementary Birth Leave From July 2026

Starting July 1, 2026, France is adding a supplementary birth leave on top of the existing system. Each parent can take one or two additional months of paid leave during the child’s first nine months. It is open to employees, civil servants, self-employed workers, and agricultural workers. Parents can take it at the same time or alternate, and the two months can be split into two one-month blocks.¹¹

Compensation is lower than standard maternity pay: 70% of net salary for the first month and 60% for the second, capped at the Social Security ceiling. The leave is optional, and parents have to use their regular maternity or paternity leave first. Any parent of a child born on or after January 1, 2026 can take it once the program launches, including adoptive parents whose child arrived in the household between January 1 and June 30, 2026.¹¹

In practice, a mother having her first child in 2026 could combine 16 weeks of maternity leave with up to two months of supplementary birth leave, reaching around six months of paid time off.

Parental Leave After Maternity Ends

Once maternity leave is over, either parent with at least one year of seniority can request full-time parental leave (congé parental d’éducation) to stay home with the child. The initial period runs up to one year and can be renewed, with a maximum of three years for one or two children, six years for three or more, and one year (not renewable) for adoption of a child aged 3 to 16. A serious illness, accident, or disability of the child allows one additional year with a medical certificate. This leave is unpaid by the employer, though a modest CAF allowance may be available, and the job is held so that the parent returns to the previous position or an equivalent one.¹²

1
Service Public. Maternity Leave for a Private Sector Employee
2
Légifrance. Code du Travail – Article L1225-17
3
Ameli. La Durée du Congé Maternité d’une Salariée
4
Ameli. Congé Maternité – Les Indemnités Journalières pour les Salariées
5
Cleiss. The French Social Security System
6
Service-Public.fr. Sécurité Sociale – Quel Sera le Plafond Annuel en 2026
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Cleiss. Rates and Ceilings of Social Security and Unemployment Contributions
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Service Public. Declaration of Pregnancy
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Service Public. Un Salarié Doit-il Passer une Visite Médicale Après un Arrêt de Travail
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Service Public. Paternity and Childcare Leave for a Private Sector Employee
11
Service Public. Création d’un Congé Supplémentaire de Naissance
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