BWhen athlete Marie-Amélie Le Fur was hit by a car while riding her scooter at the age of 15 and had to have her left leg amputated below the knee, her quick return to the running track saved her mental health and changed her life.

“Sport was so important in the first weeks after the accident because it helped me to rebuild myself psychologically and develop an identity,” she says. “While I was doing sport, I was not only seen for my disability or for what I had lost – there were bigger hopes, projects and ambitions.”

Before her accident, Le Fur wanted to be a firefighter, not a top athlete. But after her amputation, she became one of France’s most famous Paralympics participants: she won nine athletics medals at four Games, including gold in London and Rio. As a sign of her popularity in France, she appeared at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris and carried the torch in front of the Louvre.

But 35-year-old Le Fur now faces her biggest challenge yet. As head of the French Paralympic Sports Committee, which oversees the French team and promotes disability sport across the country, she wants to use the Paris Paralympics to campaign for a more inclusive society in France, revolutionise gaps in access to disability sport and strengthen the rights of people with disabilities.

Le Fur wants France to win twice as many gold medals as in Tokyo (11) and to inspire a new generation to take up para-sports, attracting crowds that can rival the huge attendance at the 2012 Paralympics in London.

It’s a difficult task. This is the first time France has hosted the Paralympics and the country has had to catch up quickly. For decades, French parasports were underfunded and undersupported. Paris’ bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games was a game changer, leading to funding for parasports quadrupling between 2015 and this year. But there is still a lot of work to be done.

Traditionally, France sends a relatively small contingent of athletes, between 120 and 150, to the Paralympics. In Paris, however, there will be more than 235 French athletes and, for the first time, they will compete in all sports.

China, Great Britain and the USA are expected to top the world rankings at the Paris Paralympics again. However, Le Fur hopes that France will finish in the top eight with 20 to 22 gold medals. French gold hopes include new, young athletes such as para-cyclist Heïdi Gaugain and swimmer Ugo Didier.

For Le Fur, the Paralympics are not just about the medal podium, but about the accessibility of sport in general. “Being a sporting nation is not just about winning medals, it’s also about providing as many opportunities as possible for people with disabilities to play sport, whether they are competitive athletes or not,” she says.

This is a sensitive issue in France. Currently, only 1.4 percent of the country’s sports clubs and associations say they are able to accommodate people with disabilities. The fact that France is hosting the Paralympics has led to an extensive program in which Le Fur has been actively involved. The aim is to train thousands of sports coaches and volunteers so that more clubs can now open their doors.

As a former competitor, Le Fur knows that crowd numbers and enthusiasm are crucial to the success of the Paralympics. Paris offers the same stunning backdrop as the Olympics, with an outdoor opening ceremony along the Champs-Élysées and on the Place de la Concorde. Blind football takes place under the Eiffel Tower, para-triathlon swimming in the Seine, wheelchair fencing and taekwondo in the Grand Palais. Para-equestrian competitions take place in the gardens of the Château de Versailles. Ticket sales were slow at first, but increased dramatically once the Olympics began.

Le Fur experienced the enthusiasm of the spectators herself at the 2012 Paralympics. “I learned in London that the public can appreciate the Paralympics for what they are: a competition at the highest level between top athletes,” she says.

“As an athlete, the enthusiasm of the London spectators and volunteers remains an incredible memory for me. To be so encouraged, valued and recognised for who we are – elite athletes in the truest sense of the word – was extraordinary. And I was struck by the acceptance of difference that I felt in London: this feeling that the Paralympics strengthened a sense of community and offered people with disabilities a place in British society.

“I hope that the Paralympics in Paris will have the same impact. I hope that the spectators in Paris will give the athletes from all over the world the same gift: the gift of being there as a spectator and of recognizing this great competition at the highest level.”

Le Fur’s overarching goal for the Paris Games is to “change French people’s views on life with a disability,” but also to bring about structural improvements in jobs, accessibility of transport and “the place of people with disabilities in society.” She is pushing for more women in Paralympic sport – the French team in Paris will be 34% female, compared with 25% at the Tokyo Games – as well as more athletes with severe disabilities.

Ultimately, she says the Games are about celebrating differences. “It’s about showing that although people may be different, that doesn’t mean they perform less or are less productive for society. We need to create an environment where everyone can succeed, regardless of their differences.”