Emma Pearson

speaker

40 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 1 Jul

Emma Pearson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Today with David McCullagh · Work first, family second? Maternity leave rights, are they enough? · 1 Jul 2026 podcast

But yeah, it's really quite short.

And like you said, it does kind of surprise people because, you know, France has this reputation as being a country that's great for workers, lots of provision, lots of perks for workers.

But actually, when it comes to maternity leave, it's just 16 weeks.

So it's really quite short for new mums.

Yeah, it's up to two months for each parent.

So you can take up to two months for each person.

So in total, if you're a two-parent family, you could get an extra four months, but it's not paid at full rate.

So it wouldn't be possible for everyone.

Well, it kind of depends if you're working in the private or the public sector, but for most people it would be 70% of your normal salary for the first month and then 60% after that, whereas the normal maternity leave is 100% paid.

Well, that's the thing, actually.

Although France isn't very good at giving maternity leave, it does have good provision for cheap childcare.

So like creche, for example, the fees are structured according to how much you earn.

So lower earners pay less or nearly none for creche.

So that's the flip side of that.

Yeah, I mean, it depends where you are a little bit.

Small towns, kind of no problem.

Here in Paris, yeah, people go around as soon as they find out they're pregnant, trying to find a crash space.

It can be tricky.

It's actually been quite muted, to be honest.

I've not really seen a huge thing.

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