2023-07-25 21:21:52
Barely in office, the new Minister of Solidarity and Families is already attracting criticism for having her remarks in the press. In an interview in the regional daily West France, Aurore Bergé said on Tuesday July 25 that she was considering shortening parental leave but to better compensate her. She considers it both too little used and too often reluctantly by mothers, according to her, for lack of a childcare solution.
“Why not think together about shorter but better compensated parental leave to give families a real choice? »asked the minister in the interview, where she also recalls the government’s efforts to create 200,000 new places in nurseries by 2030.
The current situation is “doubly unsatisfactory”according to the former leader of the Renaissance group in the National Assembly: on the one hand, many parents renounce to benefit from parental leave, because it is only compensated 429 euros per month, on the other hand some women “use parental leave for lack of a childcare solution, and therefore they move away from the labor market, when they did not want it”.
Read also: Less than 1% of fathers take parental leave, despite a reform in 2015
Critics on the left
Ms. Bergé’s sentence on parental leave, barely made public, sparked criticism and sarcasm on social networks, where many commentators were indignant at the idea that the leave – which can currently last up to three years – be shortened.
Such a measure would contribute to “massacre of the social system”was thus indignant the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau on X (formerly Twitter)when fellow senator Mélanie Vogel said on the same social network : “The emergency on parental leave is to make it egalitarian. Compulsory paid leave of equal time for both parents. »
“We pay you more to spend less time with your child! What do you say? », was ironic again the deputy and president of the socialist group Boris Vallaud.
“I do not provide an immediate answer, but we must open this debate collectively, with parents, all those who work with young children, and family associations”declared in the evening to the Agende France-Presse Aurore Bergé.
Among the critical voices that spoke, “some call themselves feminists, but how would that be favorable to women’s right to be out of the job market for two years on 400 euros a month? »added the one who succeeded Jean-Christophe Combe in the government on Thursday, during the reshuffle.
According to a study published in 2021, less than 1% of fathers take full-time parental leave after the birth of their child, while a reform in force since 2015 aimed to bring this rate to 25%. The rate of fathers’ use of parental leave hardly increased with this reform, rising from 0.5% to 0.8% for full-time leave, compared to almost 14% for mothers.
Our archive of 2020: The Senate votes to double paternity leave, including seven mandatory days
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