Wheelchairs reimbursed at 100%, administrations “more attentive”, accessible stations: President Emmanuel Macron presented on Wednesday a series of measures to improve the daily life of people with disabilities, including an envelope of one billion and half euros to make public places more accessible, announcements recently received by associations.
Regarding disability, “we are not up to the ideal of equality that we have engraved on the pediment of the Republic”, he launched during the 6th National Conference on Disability (CNH), taking note of a severe opinion from the Council of Europe.
The European Committee of Social Rights (CEDS), a body of the Council, criticized France in mid-April for not effectively remedying the problems linked to the inclusion of children and adolescents with disabilities in schools as well as the difficulties of people with disabilities. to access health services.
First urgent and priority project set by the Head of State: accelerate the compliance of small businesses, restaurants, public services, transport, in order to improve accessibility, which remains largely insufficient.
“This project is far from being a discovery, we’ve been making commitments for 20 years, it’s the one that prevents so many times your lives, access to housing, sometimes to employment and to background to the most fundamental rights”, conceded Emmanuel Macron.
The state is going to put 1.5 billion euros on the table for this, he said, promising a “real programming” from the summer of the measures to be implemented.
The Head of State also announced that this commitment would be subject to regular monitoring, with an initial assessment from 2024.
But he did not immediately retain the idea of ????penalties demanded by the associations for establishments that are slow to act. “We must already put the means, try to accelerate,” he said.
More broadly, the State, local authorities and associations will make a “progress point” once a quarter on “the whole roadmap” presented, he promised.
School, university, sports practice, love life… the president has reviewed all the areas in which he intends to move the lines.
To enable diagnosis as early as possible, all children will henceforth have access before they are six years old, by 2025 at the latest, to a public disability identification and assessment service.
Accompanying students with disabilities (AESH), recruited so far only during school time (28 hours), can now be recruited for 35 hours in order to be present also during extracurricular time. “By the start of the school year, the solution will be found and financed,” assured Emmanuel Macron.
On student scholarships, he conceded that the announcement prepared by his services did not live up to the commitments he had made in the campaign.
“On all subjects I like to do as I said. So sometimes it upsets but I assume it”, he noted in an allusion to the pension reform.
People with disabilities must have access to all types of employment regardless of their situation, he also insisted.
“We must stop automatically pointing towards specific devices and paths”, he noted, calling on Pôle Emploi to take charge of this public.
“Having a life like everyone else also means having an emotional, loving, intimate and sexual life,” insisted the head of state. “It’s not a taboo, it’s a matter of well-being, of health”, he added, specifying that an action plan in this direction would be finalized by the summer. .
Some “advances” but to be confirmed, a global “lack of ambition”: questioned by AFP, the associations, some of which had boycotted the meeting, remained for many of them unsatisfied.
“A lot of declarations of intent and not a lot of new measures”, judged Arnaud de Broca, president of the Collectif Handicaps, which brings together 52 associations, deploring in particular the absence of sanctions on accessibility.
“We would have liked to hear about accessibility for handicaps beyond motor handicaps”, lamented Luc Gateau, president of Unapei (intellectual handicaps).
For Marie Jeanne Richard, president of Unafam (psychological disabilities), “the announcements are not up to the challenges”, “it is a CNH which maintains anger for disabilities like ours”.
“Mobilization pays!”, On the other hand, welcomes APF France, the largest association of motor disabled people, now calling for “transforming promises into action for an effectively accessible France”.
26/04/2023 21:26:53 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
