Disability in France
"[2] Disabled civilians began to form the first associations to demand equal rights and integration in the workforce after the First World War.
This type of institutionalization, which took place a few days after the teenager was sent to an institut médicoéducatif (IME), is considered a deprivation of freedom and a violation of his security under international law.
It was also concerned that the "packing" technique (wrapping a child in cold, wet sheets), which amounts to ill‑treatment, has not been legally prohibited in France, even though it was banned by the health authorities, and was reportedly still being practiced on some children with autistic spectrum disorders.
The Committee noted in their report that children with disabilities enrolled in mainstream schools "face multiple barriers to access education on an equal basis with others.
This is not only due to the lack of accessible infrastructure, but also because there is no specialized training for regular teachers and school assistants, and no curricular adaptations and accommodation in the classrooms, which affects the quality of education."
She expressed "grave concern" about the situation of around 81,000 children placed in segregated medico-educative institutions, recommending that France shut them down and transform them into non-residential resource centers.
[15] "Even more worrisome, according to unofficial estimates, there are reportedly some 12,000 so-called 'children without a solution' in France, and up to 40,000 autistic students, who receive no education at all."
This leads to systemic discrimination against persons with disabilities and to a conflict of interest since these medical associations also run and manage institutions.
On 17 April 2023, the Council of Europe unanimously ruled that France had violated four articles (11.1, 15.1, 15.3, and 16) of the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) charter on disabled people.
[20] The Council noted that many people with disabilities and their families live in precarious financial situations due to the barriers they face.
To be eligible, the child must be under the age of 20 and:[21] In 2022, over 430,000 children with disabilities attended mainstream schools, with or without one-on-one or mutualized aid, and/or with technical or other adaptations.
[30] Quota objectives are achieved by a combination of sanction and incentive: employers evade paying the penalty as far as possible and are encouraged to recruit and retain people with disabilities through the prospect of financial support.
According to a report by the French Senate in 2023, sheltered workshops act as a safety net allowing people with disabilities to "have both a professional and social life".
Public policy for disability was late to arrive in France which meant that before the 1970s, it was up to private individuals in the form of associations and charities to organize themselves.
[38] A long-held belief in autism being a psychosis and the reliance on Freudian psychoanalysis as an adequate form of treatment has meant that many autistic children go undiagnosed or are placed in psychiatric hospitals; some are even taken away from their parents.
In 2011, Le Mur (in English, The Wall), a documentary film by Sophie Robert about the use of psychoanalysis to treat autism in France, was the subject of a court case.
[40] In 2012, the French High Health Authority (Haute autorité de santé) publicly stated that psychoanalysis and the use of institutional psychotherapy are not consensual forms of treatment of autism.
[41] The same year, an article was published by Le Monde newspaper by Yehezkel Ben-Ari, a neurobiologist, Nouchine Hadjikhani, a neuroscientist and Eric Lemonnier, a child psychiatrist, denouncing the use of psychoanalysis in the treatment of autism due to the lack of scientific evidence of its efficacy.
[citation needed] In 2017, the 'Rachel Case' was a high-profile court battle of an autistic mother whose children who also have autism were removed from her[47] and placed in foster homes.
