European elections: Paris makes it easier for people with mental disabilities to vote

As the European elections take place on Sunday May 26 in France, people with mental disabilities will find it easier to vote in the city of Paris. Currently, “we don’t know if we should take an envelope or not. They leave us there like that without helping us”, tells France Info Lucette Blanquart, mentally handicapped and administrator of the association “U.S. too”.

Adapted voting booths

The capital has been working for six months with various associations to facilitate the voting of people with a mental or psychological disability, an autistic syndrome or an intellectual disability. This “unique device” provides for posters in “falc” (easy to read and understand) in each polling station, training for agents, adapted voting booths, the names of the lists in Braille and an educational video intended for voters.

“These measures allow them to more easily exercise their right to vote, and this from next May for the European elections”, specifies the town hall of Paris. She recalls: “during the Interministerial Disability Committee of October 25, 2018, the government project to end the possibility given to the judge to deprive an adult under guardianship of his right to vote, was announced”.

Deterioration of the situation

The 2nd Ifop-APF France Handicap barometer reveals that 74% of people with disabilities and their relatives say they are revolted by the current economic and social situation in France. In the same proportion, they do not trust Emmanuel Macron to change the situation.

While the government had declared that improving the situation of people with disabilities would be one of the “priorities”, the survey raises a high level of dissatisfaction among the main people concerned: 43% of those questioned believe that their situation has improved. deteriorated compared to the previous five-year term, 51% find that it has not changed and only 6% believe that it has improved.