Maternity, sick or sabbatical child leave… French laws offer different ways of taking rest days. Whether it is to help a loved one, to set up a personal or professional project, there are many options.

Beyond that, other surprising possibilities exist, promoting solidarity between colleagues. Thus, it is now possible to donate your days off to an employee who is a caregiver or parent of a seriously ill or deceased child.

According to service-public.fr, “An employee may, under certain conditions, give up all or part of his days off not taken for the benefit of a colleague whose child is seriously ill. This gift of days may also be made for the benefit of of a close helping colleague […]. The donation of rest days allows the employee who benefits from them to be paid during his absence.”

This system of giving leave was not originally provided for by French law. It was born following an event that occurred within the Badoit company in 2009 in the Loire. One of the employees, Christophe Germain, had a 10-year-old son named Mathys who had liver cancer. After having exhausted his RTT, paid leave and even sick leave, the father was without options and could no longer continue to accompany his child in his illness, as Le Monde explains.

In a show of solidarity, his colleagues then donated 170 days of RTT to him, with the agreement of the management of the company, so that he could stay with his son until his death in December 2009.

Following this story, this device was promulgated on May 9, 2014 in the form of the “Mathys” law, after the name of the young boy.

In France, there are many cases for which it is possible to take more or less long rest days. Here are eight holidays, noted by Les Echos, that you do not know but which could be useful to you.