Four of France's biggest grocery chains are in court because they ignored an EAA remediation notice issued on 7 July 2025 with a deadline of 1 September 2025. The plaintiffs are two disability rights organizations (ApiDV and Droit Pluriel) backed by the legal collective Intérêt à Agir. The venue is the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris. The procedure is an assignation en référé (emergency summary proceedings), which forces judicial response within weeks, not months. The plaintiffs have a recent track record: they won a 2024 judicial ruling against the French State for the inaccessibility of educational software. If you run an e-commerce business in any EU country and you haven't addressed accessibility, this case is the template.
Case timeline: from the EAA entering into force to the summons
Four events, 137 days. The sequence from law to lawsuit was fast and deliberate.
| Date | Event | Actor | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28 June 2025 | EAA enters into force across all 27 EU member states | All EU member states | ✅ Law active |
| 7 July 2025 | Formal notice (mise en demeure) issued to all four retailers | ApiDV · Droit Pluriel · Intérêt à Agir | 📋 Pre-litigation |
| 1 September 2025 | Compliance deadline expires with no meaningful remediation | Retailers — no adequate response | ❌ Deadline missed |
| 12 November 2025 | Référé cessation de l'illicite filed — all four retailers summoned | Plaintiffs before Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris | ⚖️ Case active |
What exactly happened on 12 November 2025
The EAA came into force on 28 June 2025. Nine days later, on 7 July 2025, ApiDV and Droit Pluriel — backed by the legal collective Intérêt à Agir — issued a formal mise en demeure to Auchan, Carrefour, E. Leclerc and Picard Surgelés. The notice set a compliance deadline of 1 September 2025. That is a five-week window. The retailers did not meet it.
On 12 November 2025, the plaintiffs filed a référé cessation de l'illicite before the Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris. A référé cessation de l'illicite is an emergency summary procedure under French civil law specifically designed to obtain the cessation of an unlawful situation. It is not a standard civil lawsuit that takes years. It is a fast-track proceeding that can produce binding court orders — injunctions, daily penalties (astreintes), and public registration of the violation — within weeks. The objective here is an immediate injunction compelling the four retailers to remediate their websites and apps.
The plaintiffs are not government agencies. ApiDV (Association pour Promouvoir, Intégrer les Déficients Visuels) was founded in 1949 and has had public utility status since 1959. Droit Pluriel specializes in disability rights legal advocacy. Intérêt à Agir is the legal collective providing litigation support. This is civil society enforcement — precisely the mechanism the EAA framework is designed to enable.
On 21 May 2024, the Tribunal administratif de Paris condemned the French State for failing to make educational software (including Pronote, the school management platform) accessible. The plaintiffs in that case were ApiDV and Intérêt à Agir — the same organizations now suing the supermarkets. They have an established track record of successful judicial action in accessibility enforcement.
Why only 3.4% of major French websites are actually accessible
The case did not emerge from nowhere. French law has required large private companies (annual turnover above 250 million euros in France) to make their websites accessible under Article 47 of Loi 2005-102, as extended by Décret n° 2019-768 of 24 July 2019. Effective compliance for those companies has been required since October 2020 for websites and July 2021 for mobile apps. That means the four defendants had multiple years to comply before the EAA ever came into force. The EAA did not create a new surprise obligation. It strengthened and broadened an existing one that was already being ignored.
The self-reported compliance figures make this concrete. Carrefour publicly claims its site is "71% accessible" — its own unverified statement. E. Leclerc's declared compliance went from 32% RGAA in May 2023 to 50% in August 2025. Fifty percent. Still illegal. Still the subject of litigation. The gap between marketing claims and audited reality is the litigation.
Why this case is a template for every EU country
Three reasons this matters far beyond France.
First, the EAA came into force in all 27 EU member states simultaneously on 28 June 2025. The legal standing to file an equivalent action exists in every member state under the national transposition law. What ApiDV and Droit Pluriel did in France, equivalent organizations in Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Ireland and Sweden can do tomorrow.
Second, the plaintiffs demonstrated that this works. The 2024 ruling against the French State on educational software inaccessibility — involving the same plaintiff organizations — proved that accessibility litigation has judicial teeth in France. That track record is exactly what makes the 2025 supermarket case credible and well-resourced.
Third, the press coverage across specialized e-commerce, legal and accessibility media (Ecommerce Mag, Clubic, Points de Vente, testparty.ai, deque.com) means that compliance and legal teams across the EU are watching. The legal community is learning from this case. Expect advocacy groups in other member states to use the same procedural playbook: formal notice with short deadline, then emergency proceedings when the deadline is missed.
What you should do if you run an EU e-commerce site
The Auchan/Carrefour/Leclerc/Picard case is not a France-specific story. It is the first documented execution of a playbook that works across EU jurisdictions. Four steps, in order of urgency:
Honestly assess your WCAG 2.1 AA compliance
Do not rely on automated tools alone — they miss the majority of real WCAG issues. Commission a manual audit by users who rely on assistive technology. Your actual compliance level is the only defensible starting point.
Publish an accurate accessibility statement
Not a marketing percentage. A real statement with documented gaps, your remediation plan, and a working contact channel. "71% accessible" is not a legal defense — it is the kind of claim that will be audited in court.
Document a remediation roadmap with dates
Partial compliance with a documented plan is a far stronger legal position than unclaimed non-compliance. Show that you are actively working toward full WCAG 2.1 AA conformance with specific milestones.
Do not install an overlay as a substitute
The FTC's $1 million civil penalty against accessiBe confirms what European regulators have also signaled: an accessibility overlay does not constitute EAA compliance. It may increase your legal exposure if it creates a misleading appearance of compliance without the underlying remediation.
The documented technical failures — verified by expert audit
These failures were documented by blind and visually impaired IT experts commissioned by the plaintiff organizations. They are WCAG 2.1 AA violations, not subjective accessibility preferences.
Missing alternative text
Images without alt attributes are invisible to screen-reader users. A product image with no description cannot be understood.
Insufficient color contrast
Text and UI elements that do not meet the 4.5:1 contrast ratio required by WCAG 2.1 criterion 1.4.3.
Non-explicit links
"Click here" and "Read more" links that lack meaningful context for users navigating by screen reader.
Keyboard-inaccessible components
Interactive elements — menus, filters, carousels — that cannot be operated without a mouse.
Broken content structure
Missing or incorrect heading hierarchy, landmark regions, and ARIA attributes that make page navigation impossible for screen readers.
Inaccessible checkout flows
Forms and payment flows that cannot be completed with assistive technology — effectively blocking 2 million visually impaired users from purchasing.
⚠️ Important notice: All dates, names and procedural details on this page are sourced from identified public materials: Intérêt à Agir press release of 12 November 2025, testparty.ai, deque.com, Ecommerce Mag, Clubic and Points de Vente. Case outcome is pending as of the publication date of this page. Not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Who exactly is suing the French supermarkets?
What court is hearing the case, and what procedure is being used?
What did the retailers do wrong specifically?
How long had these companies had to comply with accessibility requirements?
Can the same kind of lawsuit happen in other EU countries?
What should an EU e-commerce business do right now to avoid becoming the next case?
⚠️ Important notice: EAA-Report is a self-assessment documentation tool, not legal advice and not a third-party accessibility audit. The Accessibility Report is generated from your input data.
Official legal sources
- Directive (EU) 2019/882 — European Accessibility Act — full text
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