Paris Paralympics 2024 – An “Inclusion Revolution”?
The Paralympic Games have come a long way since their inception in 1948, but to what extent can we really call their most recent incarnation an “inclusion revolution”? And how much does the Paralympics truly impact the lives of ‘ordinary’ disabled people in terms of legacy and ambition?
The first ‘Games for the Paralysed’ took place at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in England in 1948. Functioning as part of a medicalised programme of rehabilitation and reintegration for Britain’s world-war wounded, these Games were designed to give patients a ‘sense of purpose’ and a route back into a “useful life” (Bailey, 2007:26). In this way, disability sport, in its earliest incarnation, was positioned as a tool through which those living with physical impairments could gain acceptance, and re-achieve ‘normalcy’ (Garland -Thompson, 2005:1559), within a structurally ableist world. Under this medical model of disability, it was up to the disabled person to do their best to ‘fit in’ and to adapt themselves to an inhospitable and inaccessible social domain, under the watchful eye and guidance of a non-disabled medical elite.
Fast forward 70+ years and, despite the significant repositioning of Paralympic sport as an athlete-led, elite, global, sporting “mega-event” (Jackson et al, 2021), watched by millions around the world, I am not sure how much the onus of responsibility has really changed in terms of recognising who needs to do what in order to make the social world a more equal and accessible place for disabled people. I say this based primarily on the language and rhetoric used during the official opening and closing ceremonies of the Paris 2024 Paralympics, and in response to my own visit to Paris as a disabled spectator during these Games.
On opening the Paris Paralympics on 28 August 2024, Tony Estanguat, the President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee, described these Games as “the most beautiful of revolutions”. He then went on to position the Paralympic athletes as “revolutionaries”; there to “change our perspectives, change our attitudes, change our society” and “to finally give every person their full place”[1]. Despite the obvious nod to Paris’s role as the centre of the French Revolution back in 1789, and with an intention that no doubt comes from a place of celebration rather than dismissal, this language serves to place the responsibility for social change firmly at the feet of the disabled athletes, rather than society itself. Not only does this prescribe the athletes a political role (which is, in itself, a highly contentious issue within the Paralympic world (Hardin & Hardin, 2003, 2004; Purdue & Howe, 2012; Bush et al, 2013; Purdue & Howe, 2013)), but it also serves to gloss over, or rather completely ignore, the structural and attitudinal barriers still faced by disabled people within their everyday lives.
Take for example the issue of public transport. Despite billions of Euros being pumped into Pairs (and literally the Siene) in an effort to prepare for these Olympic and Paralympic Games, getting around Paris as a wheelchair-user was, and still is, a total nightmare:
- The Metro remains almost entirely inaccessible, with only 29 of over 300 stations providing wheelchair access.
- The buses are accessible but take FOREVER, marking the disabled user’s time as significantly less important than that of the able-bodied.
- The overground RER train service is highly misleading with stations being listed as fully wheelchair accessible but necessitating those with mobility issues to get assistance from station staff (if there are any around) in order to board or alight from the train, plus they only let two wheelchair users on at any one time.
- The tram service, whilst brilliant, only serves a very small part of the city, making it largely redundant for accessing the majority of Paralympic venues.
Whilst these everyday barriers are all-too-familiar to wheelchair users across most major conurbations, this lack of consideration for disabled peoples’ needs was particularly highlighted during the Paralympic Games, as venues for these events were spread far and wide across the city. In some ways, this dispersion of venues can be seen as a positive step in terms of making the Paralympics, disabled people, and disability infrastructure (or lack of), highly visible throughout the city, however, it also meant that, as a wheelchair-user, I spent as much time getting from venue to venue as I did experiencing the events themselves.
This significant failure of provision by the Paris Organising Committee and those responsible for Paris’s transport network was fully anticipated, with organisers encouraging all disabled travellers to pre-book specially organised shuttlebuses to and from Paralympic venues, rather than use public transport. The problem was that, not only did the practical logistics of accessing these services make them largely untenable (how to get to meeting points, having to spend all day at one event etc.), but they also left zero lasting legacy for the people of Paris, or future disabled travellers, in terms of improvements to everyday travel and infrastructure.
To add insult to injury, two days prior to the opening of the Paris Paralympics, Valérie Pécresse, President of Île de France Mobilitiés (the organisation responsible for Paris’s public transport access), formerly acknowledged the inadequacies of the Paris Metro, proclaiming it a “black spot” in Paris’s disability provision, and announcing her “ambition” to deliver a “metro for all” as part of the legacy of these Games[2]. However, this ‘ambition’ comes with the caveat that it would take 20 years, cost 20 billion Euros, and necessitate other factions of the central and local governments to come on board, before any work could take place. Whilst certainly moving in the right direction, this “ambition” is hardly what I would call a ‘legacy’, or concrete evidence of an ‘inclusion revolution’.
This “black spot” has, however, led to one of the most interesting public disability campaigns to come out of the Paris Paralympics. That is Ottoblock’s #unofficialdiscipline campaign.
Using posters and advertisements across Paris’s public spaces and transport hubs, as well as social media posts and Paralympic athlete endorsements, this campaign highlights the discrepancies between the rhetoric of Paralympic glory and veneration, and the physical barriers still faced by disabled people within the social world. It also firmly shifts the responsibility for social participation away from the disabled individual, and back onto the shoulders of wider society and its institutions. Unfortunately, whilst striking in its narrative and ambition, this campaign has received relatively little public traction or mainstream media uptake, with few re-tweets and virtually no interest from policymakers or infrastructure providers.
[1] Tony Estanguat, President of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee in his opening speech, 28 August 2024 https://press.paris2024.org/news/opening-ceremony-of-the-paris-2024-paralympic-games-speech-given-by-tony-estanguet-4d499-7578a.html
[2] https://www.bfmtv.com/paris/un-metro-pour-tous-valerie-pecresse-veut-rendre-accessible-le-reseau-parisien_AN-202408260525.html
Whatever the reason for this lack of institutional interest, the quietness of #unofficialdiscipline’s reception echoes the Île de France Mobilitiés’ lack of commitment in making change a reality, thereby exposing that, whilst the talk of ‘revolution’ may excite mainstream audiences in the opening throes of a global sporting mega-event, it does not appear to translate into any kind of ‘revolution in action’. And whilst there was much to commend these Games in terms of pushing the boundaries towards greater inclusion for disabled athletes (for example, through their combined Olympic/Paralympic branding and the incorporation of Paralympic athletes within the Olympic opening ceremony) there is still much work to be done to bridge the gap between the rhetoric and the realities of inclusion, as promoted via the Paralympic Games. This is particularly true when it comes to questions of legacy, access and infrastructure, for how are we supposed to live a ‘good’ or ‘useful’ life, if we still can’t get anywhere? And how can it possibly be our responsibility, as disabled people, to change this?
Bibliography
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BUSH et al, (2013); Disability [Sport] and Discourse: Stories Within the Paralympic Legacy, Reflective Practice, Vol. 14, No. 5, 632-647
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