Short answer. Yes. Article 1069 requires any sums a parent paid to satisfy a child's debts to be brought to collation, the same as election expenses, fines, and similar outlays. The amount your parent paid on your behalf counts as an advance against your share and must be added back when the estate is divided.
What the law says
Any sums paid by a parent in satisfaction of the debts of his children, election expenses, fines, and similar expenses shall be brought to collation.
Civil Code, Article 1069 — Debts, Fines and Election Expenses Are Collated. Read the full provision →
Why paid debts are treated as collationable
Article 1069 states the rule without qualification: any sums paid by a parent in satisfaction of the debts of his children, election expenses, fines, and similar expenses shall be brought to collation. Collation exists to keep the division of an estate fair among compulsory heirs by accounting for what each of them already received from the parent during their lifetime. When your parent settled a debt that was legally yours, that payment relieved you of an obligation you would otherwise have had to pay yourself, which is treated the same as if the money had been given to you directly.
It is grouped with election expenses and fines, not ordinary gifts
Notice what Article 1069 groups together: debts, election expenses, and fines. These are all payments a parent makes to cover an obligation or liability the child already owed to someone else, rather than a straightforward gift of property or money for the child's own benefit. The common thread is that the parent's payment discharged something the child was personally answerable for. That is why the law treats it as an advance on the child's inheritance, just as it treats a direct donation, even though no property physically passed into the child's hands.
What bringing it to collation actually means for you
Collation does not mean you have to hand the money back before you can inherit anything. It means the amount your parent paid toward your debt is added, notionally, to the estate for purposes of computing everyone's fair share, and then charged against what you would otherwise receive. In practice, your eventual share of the estate is reduced by the amount your parent already paid on your behalf, so that your siblings or co-heirs are not shortchanged by a benefit you received earlier that they did not.
What to do when settling the estate
If your parent paid off debts for you during their lifetime, that payment should be disclosed and accounted for when the heirs compute each other's shares, rather than treated as though it never happened. Trying to leave it out of the computation does not make the obligation disappear; Article 1069 makes bringing it to collation a requirement, not an option. Gathering records of what was paid, when, and on whose behalf will make the eventual division of the estate more accurate and less likely to be disputed later by the other heirs.