The President of the Republic notably announced the creation of 11,500 additional support positions for disabled children.
“We should never get used to the fact that children with disabilities are denied the chance to go to school.” Emmanuel Macron promised advances for the education of people with disabilities, Tuesday, February 11, in conclusion of the National conference on disability at the Elysée. He announced that 11,500 additional support positions would be created by 2022. But this is not the only announcement or promise from the head of state.
Positions created to support students with disabilities
Emmanuel Macron has therefore promised 11,500 additional school support positions by 2022. Their number must already have increased by 11,000 at the end of 2020 compared to 2017. According to the Head of State, “the number of children who were waiting for an accompanying adult was halved between 2018 and 2019”, from 15,000 to 8,000, but “we must succeed in falling to zero”. Likewise, he set the goal “that no child without a schooling solution can still exist next September”.
“The question of means is not limited to posts”, reacted on franceinfo Coryne Husse, vice-president of the National Union of Associations of Parents of People with Intellectual Disabilities (Unapei). “The fundamental question is how we transform the environment and therefore the school to accommodate these children”, she judges.
Additional places in specialized establishments
Emmanuel Macron also announced the creation of 1,000 places in establishments specializing in the care of people with disabilities. he said he wished there would be, next year, “no more departures” lack of adequate and accessible care in France.
A promise to maintain the AAH
The Head of State wanted to be reassuring about the sustainability of the allowance for disabled adults (AAH), paid to 1.2 million people. The government had mentioned the possibility of including the AAH in the universal activity income (RUA), supposed to merge several allowances including, at least, the current RSA, activity bonus and housing allowances.
Four associations for the defense of disabled people have slammed the door of government consultation on the subject, to mark their refusal of this scenario. “I want them to come back to the table, but with a principle here laid down officially and clearly: never the AAH will be transformed, diluted or eliminated for the benefit” of the RUA, insisted Emmanuel Macron.
The president of the APF France Handicap association, Alain Rochon, welcomed this declaration: “The speech is perfectly clear, I think that the elements are gathered (…) to return to the negotiating table on this basis”, he commented to AFP.
In addition, the President of the Republic announced that the disability compensation benefit scheme, which makes it possible to finance aid, will be extended from next year so as to cover household aid, but also assistance brought by a third party to a disabled parent to care for their young child.
A single number for administrative procedures
Introducing the “administrative mountain” As one of the major problems affecting people with disabilities, the President of the Republic called for the creation of a single telephone number to help them in all procedures concerning them, the 360. It must be put in place place in 2021.
An announcement that does not convince Coryne Husse: “To respond to families who find themselves in very complex and very diverse situations, which interlocutor with which training?”
An extended system for autistic children
Emmanuel Macron also raised the issue of autism. He expressed the wish to extend the early intervention package, now reserved for children aged 0 to 6, those aged 7 to 12, and to open it to “all dys– “, like dyslexic children. With this package, Medicare funds 100% of the assessments and procedures performed by psychologists, psychomotor therapists and occupational therapists for the first year of intervention, without waiting for the prescription treatments from the Departmental Houses for the Disabled (MDPH) .
No concrete announcement on caregivers
Before this national conference, the secretary State in charge of Persons with Disabilities, Sophie Cluzel, had put back on the table the debate on the caregivers, Sunday, while seizing the National Consultative Committee of ethics of a proposal on the subject. Tuesday, before Emmanuel Macron’s speech, the High Council for Equality opposed “firmly” to this idea, seeing it “a form of legalization of prostitution”.
In his speech, the Head of State made no announcement on the subject, but he mentioned it, holding that the question of the sex life of people with disabilities should not “not be a taboo in society”.
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