FranceService Public
New birth leave return now triggers career interview
The EPP guidance page adds the congé supplémentaire de naissance to the interruptions whose return obliges the employer to offer a career interview — where no EPP occurred in the previous twelve months.
By Taxxa AI OyPublished 1 October 2026
Returning from the new congé supplémentaire de naissance now triggers a career interviewService Public. The service-public page on the entretien de parcours professionnel (EPP) adds the congé supplémentaire de naissance to the list of interruptions after which the employer must offer an EPP on the employee's return
Service Public — provided the employee had no EPP in the twelve months before resuming work
Service Public. It joins maternity leave, full- or part-time parental leave, adoption leave, proche-aidant leave, sabbaticals, voluntary secure mobility periods, part-time work after maternity or adoption leave, union mandates and sick leave over six months. At the employee's initiative the interview may be held before the return date.
The leave itself is recent: created by article 99 of the loi de financement de la Sécurité sociale pour 2026Service Public, the congé supplémentaire de naissance gives each parent who has first taken the maternity, paternity/child-welcome or adoption leave an extra 1 or 2 months of paid leave per parent
Service Public — splittable into two 1-month periods at the insured person's request — usable simultaneously by both parents or in turn, for up to 4 extra months of parental care per couple. Its application terms were set by decrees published on 31 May 2026, and it is available from 1 July 2026 for births or adoptions from 1 January 2026.
The consequence for employers is a wider EPP net. The EPP — the mandatory four-year career interview that replaced the entretien professionnel, held during working time, never an appraisal of the employee's work — must now also be offered to every employee coming back from this new leave who missed one in the previous yearService Public. As with the other listed interruptions, the interview covers skills and qualifications, career situation and prospects, training needs and wishes, CPF activation and top-ups, and the conseil en évolution professionnelle, and it can open the way to retraining, a projet de transition professionnelle, a bilan de compétences or a validation des acquis de l'expérience. Employers who track return dates for EPP purposes should add the congé supplémentaire de naissance to their trigger list
Service Public; failure to offer a due EPP can draw sanctions, under rules that differ below and above 50 employees.
Legal basis: article 99 de la loi de financement de la Sécurité sociale pour 2026 (congé supplémentaire de naissance); article L. 6315-1 du code du travail and the service-public EPP guidance for the return-from-leave trigger.
Employers: add return from congé supplémentaire de naissance to the events that trigger offering an EPP, for employees with no interview in the previous twelve months.