Your rights in the case of incapacity

If you are unable to work (owing to illness, accident...), you must inform your employer as soon as possible (consult the working regulations).

You should also inform you health mutual using a "certificat d'incapacité de travail" termed "Confidentiel" (confidential certificate of inability to work) available from your local office or on request or downloadable on our site. This document must be completed by your "médecin traitant" (the doctor providing treatment) and sent by post. The postmark provides conclusive evidence of the time and date of posting. This means that you cannot insert it into the mailbox of a health mutual office.

Let us know in time ! (before the end of the "salaire garanti" – employer-paid sick pay – or, at the latest, within 48 hours).

During the first days or weeks that you are off work, your employer continues to pay your salary ; this is termed "salaire garanti" (employer-paid sick pay). 

Employees on permanent contracts and those on fixed-term contracts of more than 3 months’ duration are entitled to 30 days’ employer-paid sick pay. For manual workers and temporary employees, the salary is paid by the employer for 14 days, if they have been in its employ for more than 1 month. The unemployed are not entitled to employer-paid sick pay.

The first year in which you receive "allocations de maladie" (sickness benefit) is termed the "période d'incapacité de travail primaire" (primary sick-leave period). Sickness benefit is payable after the employer-paid sick pay period. The health mutual’s medical adviser checks your inability to work on the basis of your declaration and by a standard check.

If you have been off work for more than one year, this is termed "invalidité" (invalidity). The benefits you receive in this case are tied to your family circumstances.

Female employees are entitled to 15 weeks’ maternity leave (17 for a multiple birth) provided the prenatal leave ("repos d’accouchement") begins at least one week before delivery (childbirth). 

A female worker may stay at home from 6 weeks before the estimated date of delivery (8 weeks for a multiple birth). 
From the day of birth, she must stay at home for 9 weeks. During that leave period, the female employee receives maternity benefits via the health mutual. 

How should the declaration be made ?
For you to receive this benefit ("indemnité"), your doctor must complete a medical certificate specifying the projected date of delivery and the date from which you begin your prenatal leave. After the birth, you should supply as soon as possible a certificate attesting to the birth ("attestation de naissance").

A male worker is entitled to stay away from work on the occasion of the birth of his child (where he is lawfully declared to be its father) for 10 days of his choosing from among the 30 days running from the date of delivery :

• 3 days’ leave are paid-for by the employer and the remaining,
• 7 are paid-for by the sickness-invalidity insurance scheme.   

The employee will receive 82% of his gross pay. The benefit is paid only for the days of leave that coincide with days of work.

Paternity leave is allowed on the same terms as for ordinary inability to work. To be entitled to benefit, the employee must apply to his health mutual, producing the birth certificate (or, in the case of an adoption, a copy of the entry in the national population register).
When this application is received, the father is sent an information form which he must complete and return. This form enables the health mutual to determine the beneficiary’s entitlement to benefit, and the form completed by the employer enables the health mutual to determine the number of days of paternity leave actually taken. At the end of paternity leave, this form must be returned to the welfare-insurance agency ("mutualité").

The length of adoption leave depends on the child’s age and any handicap it may have :

• For a child less than 3 years of age : 6 weeks.
• For a child aged 3 to 8 : 4 weeks.
• For a child aged over 8 : 0 week.  

Where the child is handicapped, these leave periods are doubled. 

Adoption leave must be taken within 2 months of the child’s registration in the national population register.