Disability-related rights in France have been first and foremost social rights. From collective compensation for work-related injuries (1898) to the incorporation of the disability risk in the general Sécurité sociale (public health care) system (1945), and from assistance for the infirm (1905) to the disabled adult benefit (1971), the rights of disabled persons have been integral features of the rise of the modern welfare state. Indeed, even prior to its recognition as a policy category in 1975 and later in the Law of 11 February 2005, disability was covered under French social policy. The prominent role of the departments (départements, the 94 French administrative territorial units) and the Direction générale de la cohésion sociale (General Department of Social Cohesion) in administering disability policy reflects this strong anchoring in social policy. This social policy translates into a series of statuses such as the disabled worker status (RQTH), and the disability card, as well as disability benefits, which include the AEEH (Allocation d’éducation de l’enfant handicapé, or disabled child education allowance), AAH, ACTP, and PCH, that are distributed based on an administrative qualification of individuals as ‘disabled’ by specific public agencies.

This chapter explores the effects and appropriations of these disability-related social rights, with a focus on two specific benefits: the disabled adult benefit (AAH), which is a means-tested welfare payment designed to guarantee a minimum income for disabled persons, and the disability compensation benefit (PCH). Created after the third-party compensation benefit (ACTP), the PCH covers a range of expenses encountered by disabled persons (particularly for personal and technical assistance) regardless of their income or resources.

Understanding the reception of these programmes entails analysing both their empirical effects on beneficiaries’ living conditions and on the configuration within which their autonomy is defined, as well as how these programmes are appropriated (that is, how the benefits are used and the significance that users assign to them). The data reveal a broad gap between the objective impact of a given benefit, which, however inadequate, may be assumed to be positive (in providing a minimal degree of income security and covering disability-related expenses) – and the predominantly negative tone of users’ comments about the benefit and how it is administered.