RGAA

RGAA — Référentiel général d’amélioration de l’accessibilité — is the French government’s national accessibility reference document. It’s maintained by DINUM (Direction interministérielle du numérique) and serves three roles simultaneously: a localised translation of WCAG, a French-language audit methodology, and the practical reference for WAD/EAA compliance in France.

Why France has its own document

The EU’s harmonised standard (EN 301 549) is the legal foundation, but RGAA exists because EN 301 549 is dense, technically-worded, and English-first. RGAA breaks down accessibility requirements into a checklist-style audit methodology that French public-sector and private-sector teams can apply consistently.

RGAA is not an alternative to WCAG — it’s a localised wrapper. Its test criteria map back to specific WCAG success criteria, but they’re expressed as concrete checks (“does every image have an alt attribute?”) rather than the higher-level WCAG outcome statements.

Versions

RGAA has gone through several major versions tied to WCAG updates:

• RGAA 2 (2008) — wrapped WCAG 2.0.
• RGAA 3 (2014) — updated with the EU WAD on the horizon.
• RGAA 4 (2019) — aligned with WCAG 2.1 to satisfy the WAD.
• RGAA 4.1.2 (2023) — current version, still WCAG 2.1-based.

A future version will pick up WCAG 2.2.

What’s in the document

RGAA has two main parts:

1. The audit methodology. Step-by-step instructions for conducting an RGAA-compliant audit: which pages to sample, which user paths to walk, how to document findings. The methodology produces a reproducible compliance score from 0 to 100.
2. The criteria. Roughly 100 individual test criteria, each mapped to one or more WCAG success criteria. Each criterion has a technique-by-technique pass/fail definition with worked examples.

Public-sector bodies in France must publish their RGAA audit results periodically. The format is specific: a compliance percentage, a list of failing criteria, and a remediation roadmap.

Enforcement

French digital accessibility law is codified in Article 47 of the 2005 disability act, amended via the Loi pour une République numérique (2016) and subsequent decrees. The enforcement authority is ARCOM (formerly CSA — the audiovisual regulator, which absorbed accessibility oversight). Fines for sustained non-compliance can reach €20,000 per non-compliant service per six-month period.

In practice — like most EU implementations — enforcement has historically been mostly hortatory, with named public criticism of high-profile non-compliant sites. The arrival of the EAA in mid-2025 brought private- sector accessibility into the same enforcement frame and has measurably increased audit activity.

Why RGAA matters to non-French companies

Selling into the French public sector or operating consumer-facing services covered by the EAA in France means demonstrating RGAA compliance, not just WCAG conformance. Procurement responses must speak RGAA’s vocabulary; user-facing accessibility statements in France use RGAA’s compliance-score format.