An employee who is sick during their leave now has the right to postpone it.

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on September 10, 2025 at 9:48 p.m.

Reading time: 2 min.

An employee who falls ill during their vacation has "the right to have their paid leave postponed" : to align French law with European rules, the Court of Cassation established this principle on Wednesday, September 10, two years after having already imposed the acquisition of leave during sick leave .

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In European law, "the objective of paid leave is to allow employees not only to rest, but also to enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure," recalls the highest French court.

The objective of sick leave is different: it must "allow employees to recover from a health problem" , she continues in her press release, explaining that "these two rights therefore do not have the same purpose" .

“Very concrete grain”

In the French case law currently in force, and therefore now set to be reformed, "it is the primary cause of the leave that counts: if I am on sick leave when paid leave arrives, I retain my rights to paid leave since I was already on sick leave," explains Arnaud Teissier, partner at Capstan Avocats, to AFP. "On the other hand, if I am already on leave when my sick leave arrives, I cannot claim a recredit of my paid leave," he adds.

"From now on, if you fall ill during your vacation, your days will no longer disappear. (...) This is both a symbolic victory and a very concrete gain for millions of employees," notes Eric Rocheblave, a lawyer specializing in labor law, on his website. He believes that the "right to rest, the cornerstone of labor law, is consolidated as a result." He emphasizes, however, that this "imposes a new deal" on employers, who will have to "adjust the management of schedules."

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In September 2023, already by virtue of a European directive, the Court of Cassation revised French labor law by allowing employees on sick leave to acquire paid leave, even if "this absence is not linked to an accident at work or an occupational illness" .

French law had thus been amended, with parliament adopting a measure in April 2024 allowing employees on non-occupational sick leave to acquire paid leave, but only within the limit of four weeks per year guaranteed by European law, and not five weeks per year as in French law, which the unions had criticized. The French system will find itself "a little destabilized by these decisions of September 2023 and now of September 2025," according to Arnaud Teissier.

“Very negative signal”

The lawyer believes that "this will send sick leave that should not have been taken to Social Security" : "this is not necessarily a good signal that is being given" at a time when "we are hunting down sick leave, especially those that are perhaps a little abusive" , he says.

In another ruling published on Wednesday, the Court of Cassation ruled, following an appeal by three employees, that an employee on an hourly basis is entitled to overtime pay, including "during the week in which he took a day of paid leave and therefore did not work 35 hours effectively" .

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Thus, an employee on leave on Mondays and Tuesdays who has worked eight hours a day for the remaining three days of the week will now receive three hours of paid overtime, compared to none previously.

For the Medef, these two new decisions "send a very negative signal at a time when our country, faced with competition from an open world, needs to work more ." The main employers' organization "calls on the future government to seize all the possibilities available to it to defend the value of work."

By The New Obs with AFP

An employee who is sick during their leave now has the right to postpone it.

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on September 10, 2025 at 9:48 p.m.

Reading time: 2 min.

Google News Subscribe

Also read

Recap: Limited sick leave, doubled deductible... How the government plans to save 5.5 billion euros on health spending

In European law, "the objective of paid leave is to allow employees not only to rest, but also to enjoy a period of relaxation and leisure," recalls the highest French court.

“Very concrete grain”

Also read

Interview with Nicolas Da Silva, economist: “Pointing the finger at civil servants and the sick is counterproductive”

“Very negative signal”

Also read

Civil Servants' Waiting Days: "Women Will Be the First Victims"

By The New Obs with AFP