Paris 2024 “all inclusive”?
Eighteen months from the Paris 2024 Games, the site still promises to be colossal, especially in terms of tourism and disability. The eponymous association fears that the 350,000 disabled visitors will not be registered up to the challenge.
On the RER C line, direction Saint-Denis. Behind the windows of the train, a landscape under construction passes… It is there, behind this forest of cranes, that the future Olympic village stands. Eighteen months from Paris 2024, the Ile-de-France urban panorama is visibly changing to welcome 10,500 international athletes and 10 million visitors, including 350,000 with disabilities. For tourism professionals, the race against time is over. If the Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (Cojo) promises 100% housing universally accessible » for athletes, what about hotels, bed and breakfasts and other classified public establishments (ERP)? ” We have a big concern about the Paris 2024 deadline. Accommodation will be taken over by sports teams, and visitors with reduced mobility will probably be served last. “, predicts Annette Masson, president of the association Tourism and Handicaps (ATH), which labels tourist sites (places to visit, accommodation, restaurants, leisure activities, tourist offices) for the reception of disabled people.
Ile-de-France, dead last in Metropolitan France
With its (only) sixty-eight sites labeled for the four families of disability (hearing, mental, visual and motor impairment), Ile-de-France comes last in the ranking of regions, far behind the first in the class. , New Aquitaine which, in comparison, lists 1,142 establishments (again for the four disabilities). ” It is also a question of political commitment “, abounds Annette Masson, who deplores, in half a word, the mille-feuille of actors involved in the Paris 2024 project, which can slow down actions in terms of accessibility. The argument of Parisian architectural wealth and seniority is also regularly put on the table. Evidenced by the few metro stations fully accessible (13 out of 303 in total). A judged reason ” stupid » by Pierre Ciolfi, administrator of Valentin Haüy, an association for the visually impaired, who cites the example of the Louvre. Older than two centuries, the former royal palace was only recently equipped with stairs called ” modern “, equipped with vigilance strips which help to signal a possible danger. ” Stairs are often the most anxiety-inducing part of travel for visually impaired people “, he explains. Or the installation of these tactile devices does not cost more than a hundred euros. Same observation on the magnetic loops for hearing-impaired people, the price of which does not exceed three hundred euros. Making accessible does not therefore mean breaking or distorting everything. The proof with the Château de Nantes, as Annette Masson explains: ” An elevator has been integrated into one of the turrets. Admittedly, the construction site took a long time to emerge but, today, people in wheelchairs or with poor walking can go there. “.
It’s clogged with transport
In Paris, a big question mark also remains on the transport side. If the Cojo assures that ” buses, metros, RER, trams, light vehicles (vans, minibuses) and at least one of these modes of transport will be accessible to people with disabilities with particular care given to the last mile “, the ATH is more on the reserve. ” We know that the last two metro stations near the site will be closed for safety reasons, how will people with reduced mobility be able to get to their destination? asks Annette Masson. As for parking spaces, the ATH is calling for a kind of derogation so that foreigners with potential disabilities can park anywhere, even outside the dedicated spaces, subject to being registered on a platform made available by the Mairie de Paris (which is currently under discussion).
Accessible itineraries in Paris
The Autonomic Paris show, organized from June 6 to 8, 2023 at Porte de Versailles in Paris, should make it possible to see things more clearly. This meeting attributed to the issue of accessibility will be seen as a major rehearsal one year before the Paris 2024 Games. accessible tourist routes “, imagined by the Paris Ile-de-France Regional Tourism Committee and by the ATH with the help of the Institute for Research and Higher Studies in Tourism (IREST). A dozen routes, among the major tourist classics of the Capital, will be identified. The tool, currently under construction, will be accessible on the Tourisme et Handicaps website in 2023.
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