On Sunday, March 15 and 22, 2026, voters will head to the polls to choose their future mayors. Many French citizens will go with their families, at home or around the city. However, this won't be the case for everyone. Indeed, some citizens work on Sundays and may not have arranged a proxy vote to allow someone else to cast their ballot in their stead.
Nothing prevents them from exercising their citizen rights: they can easily take an hour off to go vote, and their employer cannot oppose it. It can be challenging to find time to vote if you work on Sundays, as most polling stations open at 8 a.m. and close at 7 p.m., often during regular office hours. However, a law introduced a few years ago allows voters to deposit their ballot, even if their polling station is far from their workplace.
This law n°2015-990 of August 6, 2015, known as the Macron Law, was passed when the latter was still Minister of the Economy, during François Hollande's term of office. It states that employers must allow their employees who work at weekends to be able to vote in"national and local elections when these take place on Sundays" and must even"take all necessary measures" to do so.
These measures can be a reorganization of the schedule, advanced or shortened working hours, a dedicated voting break during the day, a shift... However, an employee's absence from work means that he or she will not be paid for the hour he or she is away voting, since this is not actual working time.
