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French workers to get €38 restaurant vouchers

Employees in French companies will see an increase of restaurant vouchers to a ceiling of €38 a day, in a bid to support the French hospitality sector.

Published: 3 June 2020 11:42 CEST
French workers to get €38 restaurant vouchers
Photo: AFP

If you are an employee of a big company in France, chances are you will have a subsidised canteen for lunches, but many employees whose workplace does not have a canteen get restaurant vouchers instead to buy their lunches.

There are various exemptions to this scheme, but in total around four million employees in France benefit from restaurant vouchers, a scheme that is worth around €6 billion a year.

Now the Prime Minister has announced an increase in the maximum ceiling for vouchers – up from €19 a day to €38 a day – as well as an exemption that they can be used during weekends and public holidays as well as only on weekdays for the rest of 2020.

The increase is intended to help out France's hospitality sector, still reeling from almost three months of closure during the lockdown.

Most restaurants in France reopened from June 2nd, but in the greater Paris region – which is an orange zone of elevated coronavirus levels – only restaurants and cafés with outdoor terraces are allowed to reopen.

Some workers can use their vouchers in food shops but in this case the ceiling will stay at €19, in an attempt to boost the restaurant sector. 

Announcing the change, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said: “This may seem trivial, incidental, but it is not at all.

“It will allow the recovery to be accompanied by much better conditions for restaurateurs and it will allow all the restaurant vouchers that were not used during the lockdown to be re-injected into the restaurant and café economy. This is obviously essential.”

Restaurant vouchers are just one of the perks that French employees can enjoy, along with subsidised travel, paid healthcare, generous holidays and extra time off for working more than 35 hours a week – although not everyone is entitled to this.

READ ALSO The benefits and perks of working in France

Member comments

  1. A bit mis-leading here no? The maxspend allowed has increased but people don’t get EUR38 a day in vouchers. More like EUR8. So basically a weeks worth of vouchers @EUR8 each can now be used for a one off transaction.

  2. But for past few months restaurants have been closed and people working at home. Yet employees still get ‘tickets restaurants’ over this time. So everyone now has a surplus, that surplus can now be used due to increased daily limits.

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LIVING IN FRANCE

Explained: What to do if you leave your belongings on a train in France

Here's a look at the steps you should take if you discover that you have left an important or treasured item on a French train.

Published: 3 July 2024 14:59 CEST
Explained: What to do if you leave your belongings on a train in France

We’ve all done it. You get home, or to your hotel or office to realise that, when you got off the train, you forgot to pick up your wallet, laptop, or tablet or sometimes even items of luggage.

Or – every parent’s nightmare – one of your children has left behind their beloved cuddly toy, and only realises as the train you’ve just got off leaves the station.

The good news is that all is not, necessarily, lost. 

The first step is to report the missing item to SNCF. You can do this at the station, but if you’ve got home before you realise something is missing, you can report lost property online (you can change the language of the website).

You will need to describe what you’ve lost, when you lost it, and which train you were travelling on – as well as giving your contact details. 

What happens next

First of all, you will be given a declaration number. Keep it safe – it allows you to track the progress of SNCF’s search for your lost property.

Even so – we have to be honest – the investigation relies a fair bit on good fortune. If your lost property is found on the train by a member of staff, or handed in at a station, then there’s a good chance you’ll get it back. 

It may be that your lost property has already been handed in. If so, it will be registered on SNCF’s national lost property database and kept for 30 days at the station where the item was picked up or, for items forgotten on a train, at the station where they arrived.

Deadline

The database is monitored in real-time matching found items with reports of lost property. When your property has been located, you will be informed, and can go to the station where it is stored, or have it sent to your home address, subject to a shipping charge.

If you do collect it from the station, take along proof of ID – and expect to pay a fee of up to €10, depending on the value of the property you have reported missing.

And, after 30 days?

If items of lost property are not claimed after 30 days, it may be handed over to the government’s Administration des domaines, sold to a charitable organisation or destroyed.

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