PARIS—Angry about decades of unmet promises, people with disabilities protested in France Wednesday by showing how difficult and frustrating it is for them to travel alone by train into Paris, delivering a stinging rebuke to government inertia before the President Emmanuel Macron, hosting a national conference on disabilities, conceded failures, noted slow progress, and promised concrete action for France’s 12 million people with disabilities, including ahead of the Games.
“It’s frustrating, really frustrating, not being able to get around,” Sene said. “The feelings are of anger, frustration, revolt and resignation. Because in fact, despite the fights undertaken, the impression we have is that we’re not listened to, despite all of our efforts.” Just getting to the conference at the presidential Elysee Palace would be an ordeal for many of the people the event is focused on, because of very limited accessibility on the Paris Metro and frequent frustrations for people with disabilities on the French capital’s supposedly fully accessible buses.
For the Paris Games, France needs “to press on the accelerator” because “a catastrophic scenario is in the offing if we don’t,” APF France Handicap President Pascale Ribes said, citing concerns about accessibility, hotel accommodations and other issues for spectators with disabilities.