Regulation

RGAA: the European Accessibility Act in France

Everything you need to know about digital accessibility and the EAA in France, and how to make your site compliant.

What the European Accessibility Act means in France

The European Accessibility Act (EU Directive 2019/882) has applied in France since 28 June 2025, as in all 27 member states. It requires many consumer-facing digital products and services to be accessible.

For a website or app, the technical reference is the EN 301 549 standard, which mirrors WCAG 2.2 level AA criteria. A covered service must be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust.

Services concerned

• Consumer-facing e-commerce.
• Consumer banking services.
• Electronic communications (telecoms).
• Passenger transport.
• E-books and certain media services.

Your accessibility statement

In France, the official language(s) are: French. Your accessibility statement is best made available in that language or those languages for your local users. It must list non-accessible content and a contact channel.

National framework

National transposition of the European Accessibility Act: Décret n° 2023-931 (RGAA, loi n° 2005-102 du 11 février 2005).

Authority(ies) responsible for enforcing services: DGCCRF (e-commerce, e-books), ARCEP (telecoms) and ARCOM (media, digital oversight).

In France, two regimes coexist: for private services (e-commerce in particular), the standard EAA penalty is a 5th-class fine (7,500 EUR per infringement for a company, cumulative per service and per obligation, with injunctions and periodic penalties); the regime of Article 47 of the 2005 law (up to 50,000 EUR, and 25,000 EUR on the declarative duties, imposed by ARCOM) targets the public sector and assimilated bodies.

Where to start

The simplest first step is to establish a baseline of your site, then fix issues at the source and publish an honest statement. Penalties and their procedures vary by national transposition.