An RGAA accessibility assessment or audit — RGAA being the French general accessibility standard — establishes whether a digital service meets accessibility requirements for people with disabilities. We support you through it (Flash audit or full audit).

The key stages of an RGAA assessment

✴Define the sample : select a representative number of pages (home, contact, legal notice, forms, key pages).

✴Check the criteria : assess how the 106 control criteria of the version in force (RGAA 4.1.2) are met, across several themes (images, colours, links, scripts, and so on).

✴Use the right tools : draw on assistive and measurement tools (such as the official Ara tool or browser extensions) while carrying out the human checks that cannot be dispensed with.

✴Write the report : list the non-conformities, assess the overall compliance rate and propose corrective recommendations.

✴Publish the statement: draft and display the mandatory accessibility statement on the site itself

1. What the digital accessibility obligations are

The obligation to make a digital service accessible depends on the legal nature of your organisation and on specific financial thresholds.

Public sector (obligation in every case)

Who is concerned? The State, local and regional authorities (municipalities, regions), public establishments and bodies governed by public law.

The obligation: bring 100% of their websites, intranets and mobile applications into conformity with the RGAA.

Private sector (subject to size thresholds)

Who is concerned? Private companies whose turnover in France exceeds €250 million over the last three known financial years.

The European development (EAA): since the European Accessibility Act, as transposed into French law, came into force, banks, transport services, e-commerce sites and media with more than 10 employees or more than €2 million in turnover must also comply for their essential services.

2. Financial penalties (how much the fines are)

ARCOM, the French regulator, is the authority responsible for monitoring digital accessibility and imposing financial penalties. Fines for failures of display or of technical conformity are cumulative and renewable every 6 months for as long as the site remains unlawful.

Penalties for technical non-conformity

Amount: up to €50,000 in fines per inaccessible website or application.

Target: principally the public sector and the large companies subject to the rules.

Penalties for failing to display the mandatory notices

Amount: up to €25,000 in fines.

Applies if the site fails to display visibly:

- The conformity notice on the home page (e.g. “Accessibility: not compliant” or “partially compliant”).

- The direct link to the detailed accessibility statement.

- The multi-year accessibility plan (a 3-year action plan).

Note: by way of comparison, failing to meet the physical accessibility rules for a public-access building exposes a legal entity to criminal fines of up to €225,000.

3. What is a site assessment or audit?

A digital accessibility audit is a rigorous technical examination that assesses a site's code and design against the 106 official RGAA criteria.

What does the audit actually involve?

Since it is impossible to analyse thousands of pages by hand, the expert selects a representative sample (generally between 5 and 15 pages, including the home page, the forms, the site map, the shopping basket, and so on). Across that sample, the auditor examines 13 fundamental themes:
Images: do they have a meaningful text alternative (the alt attribute)?
Colours: is the contrast between text and background sufficient (a minimum ratio of 4.5:1)?
Keyboard navigation: can the site be used without a mouse, with the Tab key alone?
Interactive elements: do screen readers (used by blind people) understand how drop-down menus or pop-up windows behave?

What a site audit delivers

At the end of the assessment we hand you two essential documents:
The audit report (the internal diagnosis): a technical document listing every coding error, with screenshots, together with the development recommendations needed to fix them. It calculates the overall compliance rate.
The accessibility statement (the external document): the mandatory legal text to be published on the website, publicly displaying the site's status (Fully, Partially, or Not compliant). It is worth noting that a single change can create several new errors; so as not to leave you in an “unlawful” display situation — and so as not to sell you more audit days than are warranted — we have chosen to aim for Partially (>50%) compliant. That choice is honest and fair.
And the 3-year action plan (the multi-year scheme).