Wheelchairs will be fully reimbursed in France from next year, President Emmanuel Macron, who presided over the sixth annual national disability conference at the Elysée Palace, said Wednesday while presenting his government’s policy to improve the rights of persons with disabilities.
Accessibility, education and employment are among the government’s priorities to improve the rights of people with disabilities.
“This is an important measure, a measure of social justice,” said Macron.
In his presentation, the president also announced that €1.5 billion would ensure better access to public places for people with disabilities.
“It is a heavy budget line,” he said, noting that implementation would be “before summer.”
Macron also announced measures to render schools for students with disabilities more inclusive. In September 2022, 430,000 students with disabilities were enrolled in mainstream schools.
“Each school and each district of the first degree will now have a referent teacher,” said Macron.
On employment access, Pôle Emploi, France’s employment agency, will be “the gateway [for people with disabilities] to develop their professional project,” he added. If needed, professionals from the medico-social sphere will be able to help disabled people in their search for a job, he also said.
“Our goal is to propose a paradigm shift that meets the expectations of people with disabilities,” the minister in charge of disability, Geneviève Darrieussecq, said at the annual conference’s opening.
But Collectif Handicaps, which gathers France’s main disability associations, boycotted the conference, citing the government’s “apparent lack of ambition” as the reason.
“The violation of the rights of people with disabilities and their families by France is established,” the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR), an organisation of the Council of Europe, said on 17 April.
(Clara Bauer-Babef | EURACTIV.fr)
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Source: euractiv.com
