Thursday March 12th evening, French President Emmanuel Macron has made a drastic decision to “curb the dissemination of the virus on [the] territory”: closing crèches, schools, junior high schools, high schools and universities in France. This measure will start from Monday March 16 and will be held until further notice. Interviewed by France Inter on March 13th, Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer has assured that schools will be closed “at least until spring break”.
From Monday then, 62,000 schools will not open to the 12 million pupils, and over a million National Education agents. This measure involves the 74 universities in France and about 1.6 million students.
So, how can parents be organized to keep their children home? What are the solutions possible? Let’s review them.
Remote working, the easiest solution
The simplest solution is remote working, of course, when it’s possible and if your employer agrees with it. We remind that since the public transport strikes, remote working has been more and more popular in France. So, about a third of the French employees in the private field (34%) and half of it in Île-de-France, have been working from home for the strikes against the reform of pensions in December 2019, according to a CSA studies for Malakoff Humanis released on March 12.
With the coronavirus pandemic, remote working may be more and more required. Yet, note that working from home is no obligation to the employee, unless in case of exceptional circumstances like an epidemic threat or in the case of force majeure. Goal? Enabling the company’s activity to continue and to protect employees as deriving from the work code.
Exceptional minimum service for health professions
If some people can work from home, others unfortunately can’t. We can obviously think about caregivers whose presence is vital to handle this health crisis. About that topic, Thursday evening, Emmanuel Macron said a “day-care service” will be set up “region by region”. As for the National Education Minister, he said: “We will also organize a minimum service, for instance for caregivers’ children so that they can still come and work to treat people”. It concerts people working in emergency services, health services and hospital services.
Simplified and compensated work stoppage
For parents who really cannot work from home, there’s a simplified and compensated work stoppage. Already available in main centers where coronavirus circulates, this measure allows parents to keep their children under 16-year-old home while enjoying a normal “compensated work stoppage”. Please note that this work stoppage only concerns parents who cannot enjoy work conditions enabling them to stay home to keep their children, that is to say, remote working is not possible. Know that only one of the two parents can enjoy it.
And it’s the employer to decide of the work stoppage of his employee via the “arrêt de travail” on the Améli website. According to the health insurance, “work stoppage will be handed only for 14 calendar days starting from the beginning of the stoppage”. This compensation will be given until the child goes back to school, regardless of your social security scheme (general, agricultural, special or independent). More details on Améli.
Short-time work
In his televised address, Emmanuel Macron announced “exceptional and massive” unemployment mechanism measures. “The State will take care of compensation for employees forced to stay at home. (…) I want us to be able to protect our independents too. We will take all necessary measures”. No more details have been shared so far.
Last but not least, many parents hope to be able to rely on mutual aid between neighbors, friends and other parents. If this solution seems to work well in smallest cities, will it be the case in Paris? And careful, forget
