How Auchan Won an Accessibility Case Without Proving Its Website Was Accessible
Auchan won the first EAA lawsuit on a revenue threshold, not accessibility. Its 41% audit score shows why EU teams still need to fix barriers.
A French court dismissed the EU’s first EAA lawsuit against Auchan in May 2026. Dozens of headlines called it a win. The ruling itself confirmed the website met only 41% of accessibility criteria. Those two facts are not in conflict. They are the whole story.
Video: How Auchan Won an Accessibility Case Without Proving Its Website Was Accessible
What is the European Accessibility Act (EAA)? The European Accessibility Act is an EU directive requiring businesses that sell products or services to EU consumers to make their websites and apps accessible to people with disabilities. It came into force on June 28, 2025, and applies to any business with 10 or more employees or over €2 million in annual revenue, according to the European Commission.
The Court Victory That Comes With an Asterisk
In May 2026, the Tribunal judiciaire de Lille dismissed the Auchan accessibility case EAA advocates had expected to set a precedent. The plaintiffs, French disability associations apiDV and Droit Pluriel, had filed emergency injunctions in November 2025 after Auchan failed to act on formal notices sent in July 2025. The court threw out the case before it ever reached the accessibility merits.
Here is the part the headlines missed: Auchan never argued its website was accessible. It argued the court had no jurisdiction over it. The court agreed on a procedural threshold and closed the case without evaluating whether the site met EAA standards. It did not. The court’s own audit confirmed that.
A Timeline of the Auchan Case
- July 2025. apiDV and Droit Pluriel send formal notices to Auchan, Carrefour, E. Leclerc, and Picard Surgelés demanding accessibility compliance by September 1, 2025.
- November 12, 2025. Emergency injunctions filed in French commercial court: the first EAA enforcement actions in EU history.
- May 5, 2026. Tribunal judiciaire de Lille dismisses the case against Auchan E-Commerce France on revenue threshold grounds. EAA enforcement failures and RGAA non-compliance are documented in the court audit.
- June 4, 2026. Tribunal judiciaire de Caen orders Carrefour France to achieve full accessibility compliance, with daily fines for non-compliance.
What the Court Actually Found About the Website
The Tribunal judiciaire de Lille found that Auchan’s website met only 41% of RGAA criteria as of the court audit. Across the 19 sections reviewed, 13 showed strong or major failures (court audit, May 2026). Auchan did not dispute these findings. It never had to, because the threshold argument ended the case first.
RGAA (Référentiel Général d’Amélioration de l’Accessibilité) is France’s national implementation of the WCAG/EN 301549 standard. Failing 59% of its criteria means, in practice: images without alternative text, interactive elements unreachable by keyboard, form errors that do not identify which field failed, and colour contrast below the 4.5:1 minimum. These are not obscure edge cases. They are the first failures any automated accessibility scan surfaces.
The court described the site’s accessibility as “fairly low.” The case was dismissed. Both of those things are true at the same time.
Why the Case Was Dismissed – and What the Revenue Table Means for You
France has two overlapping laws. A 2005 domestic accessibility law sets a €250M revenue threshold. The EAA transposition sets it at €2M. The court ruled they overlapped and applied the higher domestic figure. Auchan E-Commerce France reported €182M in 2023 and €144M in 2024 in revenue, just below €250M, and the case was dismissed (court proceedings, May 2026).
This is a France-specific threshold argument, currently under appeal at the Court of Appeal of Douai. Other EU member states may not recognise it.
For context on how EAA enforcement consequences compound when threshold arguments fail, see The Airline Website That Failed 34 of 38 Accessibility Checks.
| Your EU-facing annual revenue | EAA obligation | Risk level |
|---|---|---|
| Under €2M | Microenterprise exemption. EAA does not apply. | Low |
| €2M to €250M | EAA applies. French domestic threshold disputed (Auchan zone, pending appeal). | Medium-High |
| Over €250M | EAA and French domestic law both apply. No exemption available. | High (Carrefour territory) |
The €250M threshold argument is France-specific and under appeal. Do not treat it as protection outside France.
E-commerce operators outside France should read Shopify Accessibility Compliance: Product Pages, Apps, and Checkout for how EAA obligations apply to their specific setup.
Does Winning an EAA Lawsuit Mean a Website Is Accessible?
No. A procedural dismissal means the law did not reach the defendant, not that the website met accessibility standards.
The Auchan outcome was narrow. It applied to one specific legal entity (Auchan E-Commerce France), in one jurisdiction (France), under one contested reading of overlapping laws that is now under appeal. One month later, a different French court reached a different conclusion. On June 4, 2026, the Tribunal judiciaire de Caen ordered Carrefour France to achieve full EAA compliance, with daily fines for non-compliance attached. Same country. Same legal framework. No threshold escape.
The Auchan dismissal is not a precedent. It is a data point in an enforcement arc that is moving in one direction.
What This Ruling Means for Your Business
The procedural escape that worked for Auchan depended on three specific facts: a named sub-entity with revenue just below €250M, a France-specific threshold dispute, and an appeal that has not yet been decided. The probability that your situation matches all three is low.
Three things to do now:
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Do not read procedural dismissals as green lights. The court confirmed inaccessibility on the record. If the appeal reverses the threshold ruling, the case returns to the accessibility merits, and those merits are already documented.
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Know your revenue tier. If your business sells into the EU and has over €2M in annual revenue, EAA obligations apply. The €250M argument is France-specific, contested, and pending appeal.
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Run a baseline scan before enforcement does it for you. The failures the court expert documented, missing alt text, broken keyboard navigation, unlabelled form fields, are detectable today. A free website accessibility checker shows you exactly where your site stands against the same criteria the court audit used.
This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. The Auchan case is currently under appeal at the Court of Appeal of Douai. The outcome described reflects the May 5, 2026 first-instance ruling only.