46It is precisely that inevitable course which the Community legislature took into account when making available to pregnant workers a special right, that is to say a right to maternity leave of the kind provided for in Directive 92/85, which is intended, first, to protect a woman's biological condition during and after pregnancy and, second, to protect the special relationship between a woman and her child over the period which follows pregnancy and childbirth, by preventing that relationship from being disturbed by the multiple burdens which would result from the simultaneous pursuit of employment (see, to that effect, Case C-366/99 Griesmar [2001] ECR I-9383, paragraph 43; Case C-342/01 Merino Gómez [2004] ECR I-2605, paragraph 32; and Commission v Luxembourg, paragraph 32).
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