The main promise of the organizers of the Olympic and Paralympic Games before the sporting event was to improve accessibility. However, NGOs say not enough has been done to make it easier for people with disabilities to move around the French capital.
Getting around Paris is a challenge in itself for a wheelchair user like Franck Mailleand paralympic athlete and representative of APF France Handicap, a charity organization for disabled.
Although the French capital promised to improve accessibility for Paralympic Games which were inaugurated on Wednesday night, the public transport network of the city remains almost impossible to use for passengers with reduced mobility.
The first stage of Franck’s arduous journey begins in Nanterrein the western suburbs of Paris. To reach the city centerMaille needs to take the RER (urban commuter train). Of the five, two are advertised as “fully accessible.” But the reality is a completely different story.
“I have to take the elevator and go down to the reception. And That’s where all autonomy ends for me. because I need the help of a railway agent”, sighs Franck Maille.
At the reception, the agent must call the arrival station to ensure that the elevators are working. If the elevators don’t work, Franck always has a plan B and a plan C to reach your destination.
“If the elevators don’t work, I go home. And if I don’t have an important appointment, I take the car or not. But I have to leave well in advance. You always have to think about the future and find different routeses exhausting“.
Another agent then has to manually pull out a special ramp for wheelchair users. A long procedure which consumes 20 minutes of Franck’s time. “Sometimes things can go wrong; just yesterday, a railway agent forgot about me and didn’t come with the ramp. The train driver had to wait for someone to come and help me out,” explained the former top-level swimmer. 53 years old.
The anguish and exhaustion of moving around constantly avoiding obstacles
Adults with disabilities go through frequent mental distress nearly five times more often than adults without disabilities, according to a 2018 report from the CDC.
He isolation is a determining factor, explains Maille: “Some disabled people commit suicide because they can’t take it anymore. They think that we are not considered human beings. We are fed up, creating an accessible society is taking too long“.
Improving accessibility was one of the key promises of the organizers of the Paris Games, dubbed ‘Games for All’. “As for accessibility, no, They are not ‘Games for everyone’. Yes, work is being done to improve, there is a will to do things well, but are they being done well? Maybe they should ask the people really involved for advice.“explains Franck.
Between broken elevators and some impatient passengers cutting in front of Maille, the trip can be mentally and physically exhausting. “Is exhausting. Physically, because you walk long distances in the hallways. Psychologically, because you have to pay attention to everyone, everything. Like the crowd, the traffic,” explains Franck Maille.
He centenary parisian metro es one of the worst means of transportation in terms of accessibility: Only one metro line, the recently completed line 14, is fully accessible. But even there, Franck always has to be alert for obstacles, as his wheelchair almost gets stuck in the gap of the elevator door.
Maille’s favorite mode of transportation remains the tramwhich is fully accessible and where you have no problems getting on and off the platform. On the last leg of the journey in busalso advertised as 100% accessible, Franck encounters more problems.
The bus station has been rerouted due to the Games. You need to travel 10 more minutes to the next one. Besides, not all bus stops are equipped with a ramp and, when they do, Franck still needs to ask for help to be pushed up the steep slope.
This entire trip would take an able-bodied person approximately an hour and a half. For Franck, it lasted more than 3 hours.
ADVERTISINGA legacy of post-Olympic accessibility?
It is expected that more than 280,000 people with disabilities come to Paris during the Games period. The City of Paris recognizes that although improvements have been made, more needs to be done.
“Thanks to the Games, we now have 1,000 accessible taxis for wheelchairs. And that is real progress. However, there is still work to doparticularly with the metro“says Lamia El Aaraje, deputy mayor of Paris in charge of Accessibility and Urban Planning.
“Together with other organizations, we have made a strong call for the metro to be partially accessiblesince we know that total accessibility is practically impossible in the Paris metro. However, I believe that we can work intelligently to create a better territorial network to improve the accessibility of the metro,” he tells ‘Euronews’.
Although the city of Paris finances the public transport network, it is the Paris regional agency that manages and organizes the network. On Monday, the head of the region’s transport network, Valérie Pécresse, admitted that The Paris metro “remains the weak point” in terms of accessibility.
ADVERTISINGPécresse said that most of the metro could modernizealthough it would take up to 20 years and would cost between 15,000 and 20,000 million euros.
Pécresse said the region is willing to cover 30% of the cost, and asked the state and the city of Paris to foot the rest of the bill, a demand considered “exorbitant” by the Parisian authorities.
Activists like Franck hope these Paralympic Games will catalyze broader inclusion for 12 million people what living with disabilities in France.
“It’s time to wake up! The French authorities should not ask any more questions, just do things right. “I am 53 years old and I would like to see a concrete improvement in accessibility in Paris before I leave this world,” he told Euronews.
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