Public Petition number 620 wants to establish a right to part-time work for parents with young children, with the possibility of transferring social gains of the parent who works full-time to the parent who works part-time to care for children.
“The arrival of one (or more) child (ren) in a home often means great changes and readjustments of priorities and timetables. Some parents therefore want to reduce their work hours to spend more time with their child(ren). Material contingencies are generally opposed to a complete stop in professional activity. If both parents work full time and do not have the opportunity to reduce their working hours, they are therefore, in spite of themselves, forced to leave their child(ren) for more than 10 hours a day (and more than 200 days out of 365!) in institutions, away from the family cocoon and love. The situation is the same (or worse) for a single-parent home,” said petition creator Celine le Cam of the motivation behind her submission.
She went on to suggest two solutions: firstly, the need to establish a legal framework requiring the employer to grant part-time to all parents with young children and second to introduce the possibility of transferring social gains of the parent who works full-time to the parent who works part-time to care for children to prevent the risk of poverty and precariousness of this section of the population.
The petition was opened for signatures on Monday 7 March 2016 and has so far collected 84, with 4,500 needed in total by the deadline, 3 May 2016, for the matter to be discussed by Parliament. To sign the petition, click here.
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