Statement by Mrs BOISSEAU Secretary of State for People with Disabilities of  France
Abstract of the Verbatim Note
Strasbourg, 29 January 2002

Mrs BOISSEAU said that although relatively rich, society kept merely paying lip service to human rights. The concerns of disabled people were shared ones. Society should not just protect them but help them to be autonomous.

It was difficult to define disability. It was better to look at people’s capacity. In France and in other member states of the Council of Europe, efforts were being made to effect such a change in people’s mentality, and to ensure that disabled people could play a full role in society. In France, the integration of disabled people would remain a priority for the years ahead. There was already a minister for disability. The 2003 budget contained measures promoting the employment and training of disabled people. It was particularly important to ensure that there were sufficient carers to enable disabled people to have a choice. For the European Year of People with Disabilities, France would be organising seven regional forums on working, growing and living together, one of which would be held in Strasbourg. There had been 600 replies following an invitation to tender for projects. The government supported 400 and would be publishing a report on the best projects illustrating the standards to be achieved. France was preparing a new law on disability which she hoped would come into force in 2005. France had previously lagged behind other countries but was now catching up. France was also working with other countries, as her presence here indicated.

Policy for the disabled, however, should go beyond Europe, and should be supported by the United Nations. The basis of this philosophy was that everybody was unique, and had something to contribute. Health was a matter of degree and the word “disabled” should be understood to mean “slightly less able to adapt”. It was up to society as a whole to help disabled people to realise their capacity and to enable them to flourish. In Sweden, it was a commonplace that to ignore the capacity of disabled people was society’s loss, a reversal of traditional ways of thinking. But action should be accelerated. Ten years was too long to wait. A 5-year timescale was preferable and measures taken to ensure that society’s objectives for disabled people were met within that time.