RGAA and video: what the framework requires, and who it applies to

RGAA, the French digital accessibility framework, applies to public bodies and, with the European Accessibility Act, to a growing share of the private sector. For a video, it asks for four things: synchronized subtitles, a text transcript, audio description when the image carries information the sound doesn’t, and a player fully operable by keyboard. Here’s who it applies to, what each requirement covers, and how to answer it.

What is RGAA?

RGAA (Référentiel général d’amélioration de l’accessibilité — General Reference Framework for Accessibility Improvement) traces back to France’s 2005 disability law, which extended the accessibility obligation to digital services. Its current version, 4.1, aligns with WCAG 2.1, the international standard: RGAA is the French implementation, with its own testing methods. It counts 106 criteria across 13 themes, one of them dedicated specifically to time-based media, meaning audio and video. It covers visual, hearing, motor and cognitive disabilities, and isn’t limited to content: it evaluates the video itself as much as the player that delivers it.

Who it applies to, and since when

The obligation first targets public bodies: the State, local authorities, public institutions, and organizations delegated a public-service mission. Since 2019, it also extends to private companies whose revenue in France exceeds €250 million. Organizations concerned must publish an accessibility statement and a multi-year accessibility plan, broken down into annual action plans. RGAA also appears in a growing number of public tender specifications, alongside hosting in France and GDPR.

The scope is widening further on the private side. The European Accessibility Act, which came into force in June 2025, extends comparable obligations to entire sectors across Europe: e-commerce, banking, transport, audiovisual media services, among others. In practice, video accessibility is already an obligation for the public sector, and is becoming one for a growing share of the private sector.

What it actually requires for a video

Four requirements apply to every video:

• Synchronized subtitles, for anyone who can’t hear the soundtrack
• A text transcript, which makes the whole content available to read
• Audio description, when information is conveyed only through the image
• A player controllable by keyboard, with visible focus and sufficiently contrasted controls

The first three fall under the Multimedia theme. The fourth crosses over with the Color and Navigation themes, which apply to the player as much as to the rest of the page.

What Videas brings to each one

Videas is designed to RGAA good practice. Compliance itself is assessed across your whole site, through an audit: a tool gives you the means to meet it, it doesn’t guarantee it in your place.

Scribe covers subtitles and the transcript: drop in a video, the AI detects the language, writes the subtitles with punctuation and separates speakers. You correct the result in a timeline editor before publishing it straight into the player, where the transcript displays in a panel next to the image, or export it as SRT, VTT, TXT or DOCX. Processing runs on servers in France, which simplifies GDPR compliance on top of RGAA’s. You can try the subtitling tool on a video, no account needed.

For audio description, the player accepts several audio tracks: the viewer picks the audio-described track the way they’d pick a language. The audio description itself is written and recorded, by your team or by a specialized provider; Videas plays it.

The Videas player, finally, gives a keyboard equivalent to every control (play, seek, volume, fullscreen, subtitles, transcript, settings), with visible focus rings on every interactive element and readable contrast by default. It personalizes to your brand, logo and colors: if you change the colors, check that yours keep enough contrast on the controls.

On top of that, chapters give entry points into a long video, so a viewer can find a passage again without scrubbing blind. RGAA doesn’t require them, but they make navigation easier for everyone.

A sample video, playing in the Videas player: turn on subtitles or open the transcript panel from the control bar, and move through the controls by keyboard with the Tab key.

Two organizations already applying it

France Travail has everything its 26 regional video libraries publish subtitled and transcribed, on those grounds. ONISEP, which manages over 4 TB of video watched a million times a month, used to outsource its subtitling to an external provider, file sent, wait for the return, reimport; the team now triggers it themselves, on the video they’ve just uploaded.

An obligation that becomes an advantage

Treating accessibility as a box to tick is missing the point. The same criteria that keep you compliant also widen your audience: well-made subtitles reach the 6 million French people who are deaf or hard of hearing, but also viewers who simply watch with the sound off, and those who don’t speak your language if you translate them. A keyboard-navigable player benefits any viewer in a hurry who’d rather not touch their mouse. A transcript indexed by search engines also improves each video’s ranking, well beyond the audience it was originally aimed at.

What keeps you compliant with RGAA is, almost always, what grows your audience.

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