yes, sport can accelerate the inclusion of people with disabilities

Tribune. On Sunday, September 5, the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games end, a global sporting event, both universal and unique. France can be proud of its para-athletes, who have won more than fifty medals.

The Superior Audiovisual Council (CSA) pointed out in its latest barometer: apart from the Paralympic Games, people with disabilities have a share of audiovisual visibility that does not reach 1%. Every four years, this international competition is accompanied by strong media coverage of disabled athletes and their exceptional performances. The event is obviously an opportunity for the general public to discover our disabled athletes and, through them, what people with disabilities are capable of, through courage, training, perseverance …

If the para-athletes are particularly inspiring, it is because they are great sportsmen, before being carriers of a handicap. And this year, the International Paralympic Committee got it right. I take as proof the message carried by the # WeThe15 campaign: no need to heroize them, but rather to honor them at the height of their exploits, no need to differentiate them, but to distinguish them for their victories, no need to pity them, but to celebrate their efforts and their performances.

First get out of invisibility

For people with disabilities, athletes or not, getting out of invisibility is an essential first step. To move the lines and give the same rights and opportunities to people with disabilities as to the general population, sport is a formidable vector that can change the outlook and support the real and lasting inclusion of people with disabilities. Because, today, this inclusion is insufficient.

Certainly, improvements can be observed and should be welcomed, particularly in the area of ​​professional integration. In 2021, the number of job seekers with disabilities fell by 2.2%. In 2020, nearly a million people with disabilities were employed, more than 80% of private companies with 20 or more employees employed at least one disabled employee, and nearly 265,000 people with disabilities worked in the public service.

But disability is still the first cause of discrimination in accessing employment, as the Defender of Rights reminds us, and the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is twice as high as for all job seekers. Recently, under the effect of the health crisis and its economic and social consequences, the mental health status of people with disabilities has deteriorated, as shown by an Agefiph-IFOP survey in 2020.

The observation is clear: the 12 million French people with disabilities deserve better. They are entitled to demand the same rights, the same access, the same professional horizons as their fellow citizens. It’s time.

Normalize the difference in the professional environment

The world of work is an essential vector for the inclusion of people with disabilities to become a reality. Opening up employment to people with disabilities helps to normalize, and even enhance, the difference in the workplace. We work on this every day at the Association for the Management of the Fund for the Professional Integration of Disabled People (Agefiph).

Our ambition must mobilize all energies, in all fields of society, particularly the most visible among them. Sport, because it concerns all of us, and with its capacity to mobilize attention and enthusiasm, obviously has an essential role to play.

The organization of the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024 in Paris is a great opportunity to shift the lines and create momentum towards the sustainable and total inclusion of people with disabilities. The City of Paris already has the ambition to make the capital a resolutely inclusive and accessible city.

These next Games can be activators of progress and defend the conviction that real consideration of disability is a winning bet from all points of view: beyond the possible constraints, disability can be an asset, an opportunity to do better and to act for equal opportunities, a vector of innovation, a factor of progress for the whole of society.

Agefiph is already working with the French Handisport Federation and the Paris 2024 organizing committee to amplify the momentum that the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games will bring. What are you waiting for, as many companies have already done, to join us?