Book II: Employment contracts

Where a medical condition is certified as resulting from pregnancy or childbirth, maternity leave is increased by the duration of the condition, up to a maximum of two weeks before the presumed date of childbirth and four weeks after the date of childbirth.

If the child remains hospitalised until the end of the sixth week following the birth, the employee may postpone all or part of the leave to which she is still entitled until the date on which the hospitalisation ends.

When childbirth occurs more than six weeks before the expected date and requires postnatal hospitalisation of the child, maternity leave is extended by the number of days running from the actual date of childbirth to the start of the maternity leave periods mentioned in articles L. 1225-17 to L. 1225-19.

Maternity leave results in the suspension of the employment contract. The employee shall notify the employer of the reason for her absence and the date on which she intends to end it. The duration of this leave is treated as a period of actual work for the purposes of determining the employee’s seniority rights.

At the end of her maternity leave, the employee returns to her previous job or to a similar job with at least equivalent pay.

In the absence of a collective agreement at branch or company level setting guarantees for the development of employees’ pay during maternity leave and following such leave that are at least as favourable as those mentioned in this article, such pay, within the meaning of article L. 3221-3, is increased, following such leave, by general increases as well as by the average of individual increases received during the period of…

An employee who returns to work after maternity leave is entitled to the professional interview mentioned in I of article L. 6315-1.

In the event of the death of the mother during the period of compensation defined in the first paragraph of article L. 331-6 of the Social Security Code, the father may suspend his employment contract for a period at most equal to the remaining period of compensation defined in the same first paragraph, where applicable deferred in application of the second paragraph of the same article. The person concerned shall…