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Realizing the Right to Access in France: Between Implementation and Activation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Anne Revillard Open the ORCID record for Anne Revillard [Opens in a new window]
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Abstract

This article explores the realization of the right to access in France, based on biographical interviews with people with mobility or visual impairments. I lay out an original theoretical framework for studying rights realization at the individual level. Although rights activation is the horizon of most rights consciousness research, I argue that rights do not necessarily need to be activated in order to be made real. This realization may also derive from effective policy implementation. In France, however, disabled individuals are very active in realizing their right to access, in a context of insufficient implementation. Moreover, although there is limited collective mobilization, several types of policy feedbacks fuel rights activation and the emergence of grievances regarding the lack of accessibility. Studying the realization of the right to access thus opens up promising perspectives for sociolegal research.

Type
Special Issue: Disability Legal Studies Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 53 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 950 - 982
Copyright
© 2019 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

This research was funded by a public grant overseen by the French National Research Agency (ANR) as part of the “Investissements d'Avenir” program LIEPP (reference: ANR-11-LABX-0091, ANR-11-IDEX-0005-02). Previous versions of this paper were presented at the 2018 Law and society conference and the 2018 ALTER conference. I wish to thank Katharina Heyer, Sagit Mor, and the LSR reviewers for their most useful comments on previous versions of the text. I also wish to express my gratitude to research participants for sharing their life stories and experiences of the lack of access in France.

References

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Statutes Cited

Loi n° 75–534 du 30 juin 1975 d'orientation en faveur des personnes handicapées [Framework Law in Favor of Disabled Persons, June 30, 1975].

Loi n° 2005–102 du 11 février 2005 pour l'égalité des droits et des chances, la participation et la citoyenneté des personnes handicapées [Law on the Equal Rights and Opportunities, the Participation and the Citizenship of Disabled Persons, February 11, 2005.]

Ordonnance n° 2014–1090 du 26 septembre 2014 relative à la mise en accessibilité des établissements recevant du public, des transports publics, des bâtiments d'habitation et de la voirie pour les personnes handicapées [Ordinance on the Accessibility of Public Buildings and Transportation, Housing Units and Streets, for Disabled Persons, September 26, 2014].

Loi n° 2015–988 du 5 août 2015 ratifiant l'ordonnance n° 2014–1090 du 26 septembre 2014 relative à la mise en accessibilité des établissements recevant du public, des transports publics, des bâtiments d'habitation et de la voirie pour les personnes handicapées et visant à favoriser l'accès au service civique pour les jeunes en situation de handicap [Law Ratifying the 26/09/2014 Ordinance and Favoring Access to Civic Service for Disabled Youths, August 5, 2015].