As of June 28, 2025, no French economic player will be able to avoid their compliance obligations , at the risk of being exposed to sanctions and fines.
Digital accessibilityIn the photo we see a man holding a mobile phone and in the foreground a computer keyboard
Much stronger constraints in terms of digital accessibility for all private actors
The 2019 European Directive requires products and services to:
To be accessible;
To propose adaptations if necessary to make them accessible;
To provide all necessary documentation in an accessible format (instructions, packaging, etc.)
To offer websites and applications referring to it that are accessible (Also read our article: How to guarantee the digital accessibility of your website? );
To have fully accessible digital interfaces, provided that these interfaces are necessary to use the purchased product;
And, in certain areas (transport, books, banking, e-commerce), to comply with certain additional obligations.
Also, the legislative changes made in France concern a large number of texts, such as the Consumer Code , the Transport Code , the Monetary and Financial Code, etc.
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An accessibility obligation for all economic actors with more than 10 people and 2 million in turnover.
The Consumer Code now imposes a digital accessibility obligation for all economic actors with more than 10 people and 2 million in turnover. These actors can be exempted if:
Compliance requires a fundamental change in the nature of the product or service;
Compliance imposes a disproportionate burden.
The various administrative authorities responsible for regulating the various areas of economic activity are now empowered to carry out checks and therefore impose sanctions.
It will be interesting in the months and years to come to see to what extent these administrative authorities will be willing and able to take hold of these issues, and with what means.
The digital book, an accessibility obligation that will shake up an already mature sector
By 2025, the digital book must be accessible. While the most common format, EPUB, already offers accessibility standards, including accessibility recommendations , the task is enormous given the number zalo database of digital books currently in circulation. The digital publishing community must therefore define both audit and certification methods for all publishing stakeholders and professionals.
In transport, people with disabilities will finally be able to buy their tickets everywhere
All freely accessible terminals, in particular those that allow you to buy your tickets at a bus stop, must be accessible. As with other goods and services, a distinction must be made between terminals that will be put into service from 2025 (and which must be accessible on the day they are put into service) and pre-existing terminals, which benefit from a compliance period. This period runs until the end of their economically useful life and, at the latest, 15 years after they are put into service. So, in practice, there will no longer be a single inaccessible terminal in 2039: seen from this perspective, that's a long way off!
Financial and banking services will also have to comply!
Loan contract management, dual authentication, online signatures, online banking services (…) or even cryptocurrency management tools: all banking and financial services must be accessible .
In this area, the question of the accessibility of mobile applications, widely used in this sector, and for which there is no standardized standard, arises in particular. While some organizations are working on this subject, there is still a lot of work to be done to guarantee a single accessibility reference for mobile applications.
We can also mention accessibility obligations for e-commerce sites, or even telephone services or audiovisual media, for which accessibility rules will become a major imperative for compliance in the coming months/years.
An accessibility compliance deadline of between 2025 and 2030
By June 28, 2025 , all new products or services will need to be compliant , with some additional deadlines:
Until 2030 for service providers who already operated a similar service: so if you already operate an e-commerce site, you have until 2030 to comply. That's a long time...
Until 2030 for all service contracts concluded before June 28, 2025;
Until the end of the “economically useful” life of self-service terminals (and at most 15 years after they are put into service), which, in fact, could take us until 2039!
Please note that without an implementing decree or order, the means and framework for control operations will remain non-existent...
Now we just have to wait for the implementing decrees, which, in the specific case of this European transposition, are key.
