French government shines spotlight on autism

Earlier this year the French government launched an autism awareness campaign on TV and in cinemas to help people “better understand” the condition. 

It featured celebrities who have been directly affected by autism, whether as the parents of autistic children, such as comedian Élie Semoun, actor Francis Perrin and screenwriter Minh Tran Huy, those who have siblings with it, or those who have been diagnosed themselves.

"There are 700,000 autistic people in France," said Fadila Khattabi, Secretary of State in charge of People with Disabilities and who introduced the campaign in April.

"We want to help society better understand how these people evolve, and how their exclusion is unjustified. Disabled people are fellow citizens in their own right... and not apart."

The short clips focused especially on the communication difficulties of autistic people and their sensory hypersensitivity.  

Read more: 'Being neurodivergent is challenging in Paris'

Visibility aspect

These are “collective specificities” that should help make the condition more visible to people with no experience of it, said director and co-writer Hélène Grémillon.

She noted, however: "There are as many forms of autism as there are autistic people.”

Last November, the government launched a plan to release €680million between 2023 and 2027 for better care of neurodevelopmental disorders, of which autism is a part. 

More still needs to be done, however, argues SOS Autisme France.

Its president Olivia Cattan told France Info in April: "We're always hearing about huge sums of money, but strangely enough, on the ground, we don't notice anything.

“There is a lot of communication,” she added, but "no real political action" in terms of school inclusion, early diagnosis, or new places in centres. 

She has asked the Cour des Comptes to examine the expenditure of the government plan and its real effects for autistic people and their families.