Fleur Pellerin, Minister of Culture and Communication, and Ségolène Neuville, State Secretary for Persons with Disabilities and the Fight against Exclusion, to Marisol Touraine, Minister of Social Affairs, Health and Women’s Rights, On 27 January 2016, the 10th National Commission on Culture and Disability was chaired.
Together with the Ministers and Etienne Petitmengin, Secretary General of the Interministerial Committee on Disability, the committee took stock of the progress made since 2014, including:
- further improvements in the accessibility of cultural institutions' websites,
- the significant change in the number of institutions under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and Communication whose buildings are already accessible;
- the actions of the National Cinema Centre (CNC), which has developed support mechanisms for making works and cinematographic establishments accessible when they bear fruit;
- The increased commitment and resources since 2012 for young people with disabilities have enabled them to benefit fully from arts and cultural education activities;
- access to Culture higher education schools has improved;
- a standard civic service mission has been developed to enable able-bodied young people to foster the reception of disabled people in cultural establishments;
The Minister and the Secretary of State reiterated their commitment to ensure that cultural institutions mobilize to welcome in civic service many young people with disabilities and proposed that all young people in civic service benefit from training in disability organized in conjunction with associations representing persons with disabilities.
Finally, the Minister of Culture and Communication recalled that the Bill on Creative Freedom, to the heritage architect fully integrates the issue of access to the culture of persons with disabilities and in particular improves the disability exception to copyright, by including in the definition of the public beneficiaries dyslexic or dyspraxic; as well as by promoting the sharing of digital files of works adapted to disability situations between the various approved structures.
Fleur Pellerin and Ségolène Neuville have especially renewed their ambitions for 2016 and 2017
Priority for accessibility to public broadcasting
France Télévisions is committed to the accessibility of television programs with the deployment, as of June 2016, of a player allowing the availability, on connected television, interpretation of certain French sign language programs and, as of October 2016, accessibility in sign language of the news newspapers of 1 and 8 p.m.
Other important measures have been announced:
- as soon as an event justifies the interruption of programmes for the broadcast of an info flash, it will be translated into sign language;
- the future continuous information channel will include accessibility in its missions from its launch;
- the electoral debate, notably between two rounds of the 2017 presidential election, will now also be translated into sign language.
Finally, the Directorate-General for Media and Cultural Industries (DGMIC), in conjunction with the Enterprise Directorate-General, will mobilize the professional sector to rapidly develop a DTT voice decoder.
New ambitions for adaptive publishing and digital
A joint mission of the Inspections of Culture and Communication (IGAC) and Social Affairs (IGAS) is launched in order to improve the activities of adaptation of works while streamlining the means and public funding allocated to them.
In addition, to ensure that people with disabilities benefit from the full potential of digital technologies, Fleur Pellerin and Ségolène Neuville announced that they would mobilize the actors of new technologies, disability and cultural institutions within the framework of a Hackathon, “New technologies/ Culture/ Universal accessibility” and that the theme “Accessibility-Handicap” will be included in the call for projects “Innovative cultural digital service” launched in 2016 by the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Culture and Communication.
Commit to the training of cultural professionals
All national institutions of higher education in architecture now include education on accessibility within their different curricula. An enhanced action will be conducted in initial training in art schools. To develop continuing education, accessibility workshops conducted in conjunction with representative associations will be sustainable, new guides from the Culture Handicap collection will be published in 2016 and MOOCs will be initiated.
“Making arts and culture accessible to people with disabilities is a major issue for me. How could it be otherwise, when the first ambition I have given to my Ministry is to seek the participation of all French people in cultural life? This ambition can only be achieved to the extent that cultural life itself strives to make room for everyone. In this process of inclusion, the lack of a suitable offer cannot be the rule: it can only be the exception,” Pellerin said.
By proclaiming the principle of universal accessibility - that is, the right of everyone to have access to everything - the 2005 law also opened up the entire public space for people with disabilities, regardless of their disability. This implies organizing their full participation in the life of the city. This principle is characterized by the scope of the possibilities it opens. Access to culture and information is of particular importance,” said Ségolène Neuville.