Selling your 5th week of paid leave? The RTT precedent and the Danish example

France " does not produce and does not work enough ," François Bayrou asserted on Tuesday, July 15, in an introduction to his broad guidelines for the 2026 budget. To address this, the Prime Minister proposed the elimination of two public holidays. The Minister of Labor, who spoke next, suggested the possibility of monetizing the fifth week of paid leave.

" We want to seek (...) an incentive to increase working hours, in a context where four out of ten employees already work overtime, with, for example, the possibility of monetizing the fifth week of paid leave ," described Astrid Panosyan-Bouvet. The idea, in plain language, would be to offer employees the possibility of giving up a week of paid leave, in exchange for an increase in salary.

The Minister of Labor's proposal echoes a measure implemented three years ago: the buyback of "reduced working time" days, the now-famous RTT. The measure, included in the draft finance bill, was adopted in 2022, not without encountering strong opposition , particularly from the left, which denounced a challenge to the 35-hour week.

Since then, employees, through a one-off, individual, and theoretically voluntary agreement with their employer, can request that the RTT they have not taken be "bought back" by the company. The employer is free to accept or not. However, if they agree, they will have to pay their employee at the overtime rate.

This measure, introduced to address inflation and improve employees' purchasing power, was adopted with the prospect of temporary application. Initially scheduled to expire at the end of 2025, it was ultimately extended until December 2026.

If the monetization of the fifth week of vacation follows the same logic as the buy-back of RTT, the increase could indeed encourage workers to give up a week of vacation. A prospect rejected outright by the general secretary of the CFDT, speaking on France Inter. " Today, the number one issue is indeed the question of purchasing power, but it's not up to employees themselves to give themselves a little more leeway to make ends meet by cutting back on their vacation ," Marylise Léon asserted.

Today, most European countries adhere to the European directive requiring a minimum of four weeks of paid vacation. But France isn't the only country offering more vacation time: Sweden, Luxembourg, Austria, and Denmark also offer five weeks of paid vacation. The duration increases to six weeks in Malta and Spain.

Of the countries that exceed the European minimum, only Denmark has national legislation allowing the fifth week of paid leave to be monetized for workers who so wish. The measure was introduced in 2020 as part of a broader holiday bill.

The law allows an employee who has not taken more than four weeks of vacation during the year to enter into an agreement with their employer. They can then benefit from a 12.5% increase in salary for that week worked.