Disability groups took Carrefour to court because visually impaired users were routinely blocked from completing basic tasks on their site and mobile app.
In June 2026, the French judicial court ruled against Carrefour.
Carrefour didn't deny their legal obligation but their defence would match what many project managers try and argue - they claimed they were already 71% compliant under the RGAA (the official French digital accessibility framework).
They essentially argued: "Look, we've done some work"
The court’s response was a sharp reality check
"The eCommerce site in question cannot just be somewhat accessible it must be totally accessible."
Carrefour has exactly six months to achieve compliance across all 106 criteria of the technical framework, or face a daily penalty of €500 for every day they remain non-compliant. Ultimately this is a failure under their CTO Olivier Gibert's leadership.
Why "mostly accessible" is a nonsense.
The court used this example
If a building has a staircase, 100% of the steps must be covered by a handrail. If you only install a handrail on 71% of the steps and leave the top 29% completely bare, the staircase is fundamentally unsafe and unusable for someone who relies on that rail.
In code, accessibility works exactly the same way. If a user can browse your store, filter categories, and add an item to their cart, but your checkout form fields lack proper HTML labels or your "Place Order" button is a flat <div> with no keyboard focus state, the entire site is broken for that user.
You don't get partial credit for letting a user build a shopping cart if you block them from spending their money at the final step.
Why Developers need to shift their mindset
An automated score really tells a disabled user nothing about if they can use your website. If a company thinks they're doing great but the mega-menu doesn't even work with keyboard properly it indicates there is still lots of work to do.
This case proves, arguing "we did some work" is not going to prevent fines. If the company is not testing with disabled users, what the team is doing has a technical name:
Guessing
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