You are coming to France with children and you are looking for childcare solutions?

You will find attached a guidebook created by the Welcome Office to help you in your search:

Guidebook for childcare

Below you will already find some general information:

Individual daycare

In this case, a caregiver looks after your children in a stable, familiar environment.

You can hire an assistante maternelle (a professional, registered caregiver) to look after your children at his or her own house. Assistantes maternelles can look after 1 to 4 children.

You as parents become their employers (an employment contract must be signed from the first day).

Most French parents choose this childcare option.

Assistantes maternelles can also be employed in family childcare centers (crèches familiales).

A nanny can also come to your home to look after your children. In this case too, parents become employers and an employment contract must be signed from the first day.

Collective daycare

In this case, qualified professionals look after children in specific facilities aimed at developing your children’s interpersonal, intellectual and physical skills.

Childcare centers (crèche collective) can look after your children every day, on a regular basis, full-time or part-time.

This childcare option is in great demand, so there may be a long waiting list.

There are other childcare centers (halte garderie) which can take care of your children from just a few hours a week up to two days a week, leaving you free for personal activities.

Choosing this childcare option enables your children to be in a socially interactive environment and sets up the basic rules of preschool.

Family childcare centers (crèche familiale) or parent’s childcare centers (halte-garderie parentale) are small facilities managed by groups of parents. Parents work alongside professional caregivers to take care of the children.

Childminding when your child goes to school

Collective daycare: leisure centers and after-school child care. Outside of school time, leisure centers and after-school child care can mind your child and offer them activities. In the morning before class and in the evening after class, your child can be minded in the premises of the school. On Wednesdays and during school holidays, your child is kept all day in leisure centers.

Individual daycare: the childminder or an employee at the home of the parents (a nanny). As younger children, your child can be minded by a childminder or an employee in the parent’s home.