In 2022, one million mentally disabled citizens in France are still largely ignored by society.

For the Anne de Gaulle Foundation, this was unacceptable.

We decided to give them unprecedented media visibility by renaming Charles de Gaulle Airport, the biggest in Europe.

We changed the façade of the terminal, replacing the name with: “Anne De Gaulle”, in gigantic letters. Luggage tags, carts, queue signage, boarding passes, every screen in every terminal – even road signs – featured the name “Anne de Gaulle.

With a simple change in name, we sparked a national conversation in the media, making mental disability

Charles and Yvonne de Gaulle created the Fondation Anne de Gaulle in 1945 in honor of their daughter Anne, born with Down syndrome. For 75 years, the foundation has been campaigning to make society more inclusive for the mentally disabled. But still to this day, they remain mostly invisible and excluded from much of society, including public transport. For the Anne de Gaulle Foundation, this was unacceptable. Our challenge was to focus unprecedented media visibility on the foundation’s cause.

To create as much buzz as possible, we changed the name of the largest public infrastructure in France, an infrastructure with direct lineage to the foundation’s history: Charles de Gaulle Airport.

We changed the façade of the terminal: “Anne De Gaulle” was written up in gigantic letters. Luggage tags, carts, queue signage, boarding passes, every screen in every terminal – even road signs – featured the name Anne de Gaulle.

With a simple change in name, we sparked a national conversation in the media and made mental disability impossible to ignore.

We had to work according to a complex media schedule, since the operation was to be launched on December 3, the International Day of Disabled Persons. Not only was that a Saturday, but it also coincided with the Telethon, France’s biggest nationwide fund-raising event (in aid of rare diseases).

We set up a partnership with France Info, one of France’s most popular radio stations, to ensure rolling coverage of the event for a large audience and leverage its reputation as a lead for other media to ensure maximum mentions.

The 360-degree partnership with France Info comprised an exclusive announcement of the operation on December 1, radio spots promoting the Foundation, mention of the operation as part of news programs on December 1 and 2, followed by a live off-site broadcast from Terminal 2E at “Paris-Anne de Gaulle Airport”.

The campaign had tremendous PR and social media repercussions. More than 200 articles were published in 13 different countries, with over €1 million in earned media and reach of 50 million. A large number of political and institutional figures, social entrepreneurs and artists known for taking a stand on disability rights shared the operation on social media.

Our strategy and activation enabled the Foundation to reassert its refusal to accept things as they are. In addition, it endorsed the call from other charity organizations for a paradigm shift in the support available for people with disabilities. Groupe ADP, which operates Paris-Charles de Gaulles Airport, used the operation to kick-start its transformation aimed at improving accessibility for people with disabilities ready in time for the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.

We conceived an innovative use of media, turning the largest airport in Europe into an unignorable media message. We amplified the reach by leveraging one of the largest media groups in France. The media strategy was bold, impactful, and made our message of inclusivity impossible to ignore.

Charles de Gaulle is the French equivalent of Winston Churchill. He is the hero of WW2, founding father of the constitution and the first President of the 5th Republic. His influence and heritage are still tangible today, with many in France claiming to be Gaullist.

As such, everybody in France knows of de Gaulle: according to polls, he is even regarded as the greatest Frenchmen of all time. So, this campaign could only be impactful in the French cultural context: we leveraged a cultural icon and a pillar of contemporary French identity to convey an impactful message of inclusivity.