Best wishes to our Paralympic team. As our contingent sets out to win glory for Bharat at the Paris Paralympics 2024, I extend my heartiest best wishes to them."
Dear athletes, welcome to the country of love and revolution. Rest assured, tonight, no Storming of the Bastille, no guillotine, because tonight the most beautiful revolution starts – the Paralympic revolution,
The Paris 2024 Paralympic Games will show what persons with disabilities can achieve at the highest level when the barriers to succeed are removed,
That is why 225 years on from when Place de la Concorde was central to the French Revolution, I hope that Paris 2024 starts a Paralympic revolution — the inclusive revolution,
These Paralympians are not here to participate,
I am truly honoured to be standing here today, as a Paralympian and a member of the astronaut reserve with a physical disability,
I know it’s Channel 4 but is it really impossible to show the Paralympics opening ceremony without interruptions from adverts?
With every new step of my journey, I am proud to be challenging preconceptions around the professional roles in which we should expect to see people with physical disabilities
The aim of this ceremony is to change the way we look at people with disabilities, and to oppose all preconceived opinions on these issues, but not in a vain and sterile opposition,
Every person with a disability deserves the opportunity to thrive and live life free from barriers, free from discrimination and free from marginalisation,
At a time of growing global conflict, increasing hate, and rising exclusion, let sport be the social glue that brings us together,
I often find that words are worthless and that images, or the situations they illustrate, are much more valuable.”
Living together better starts with mutual consideration ... then we can repair, reconcile, adapt and move forward together better.”
This is one of the key expectations we have around Paris 2024; we believe that we need people with disability to be put back on the global agenda,
Putting Paralympic athletes in the heart of the city is already a political marker in the sense that the city is not sufficiently adapted to every handicapped person,
This ceremony at the heart of the city is a strong symbol illustrating our ambition to capitalise on our country hosting its first-ever Paralympic Games to position the issue of inclusion for people with disabilities at the heart of our society,
At Paris 2024, it’s time we set the record straight.”