France · Open market · Operating partnership
Access on this page: Signed: Langue des signes française — pending How this page is tested
This page in sign language
Signed end to end by a Deaf creator, credited by name. International Sign on the global site; your national sign language on your country page.
ally is a platform where creators make sign language, captions and audio description — and one API delivers it to any screen. We are looking for the partner who will build the French operation with us.
Why we are looking for a partner
One partner video — spoken, captioned and signed by a creator we already work with. It is shared across every open-market page. We do not fake a local signer to look established here.
The people
France's sign language is Langue des signes française (LSF) — recognised as a language in its own right by article 75 of the law of 11 February 2005, after the Milan congress of 1880 pushed it out of French classrooms for over a century. Its Deaf community is among Europe's most organised, and among the most alert to what 'accessible' has been allowed to mean.
In plain words
Below is who lives here and what reaches them. Every number on this page is a research seed, not an audited claim — we mark them, rather than publish numbers we cannot yet stand behind.
Why captions alone do not close this gap → Why sign language
The mandate
recognises LSF as a language in its own right, codified as article L312-9-1 of the education code; article 74 sets the 100% subtitling duty for channels above 2.5% audience, applied since February 2010.
gives families of Deaf children the right to choose bilingual education in LSF and French, since 18 January 1991.
since 1 January 2020 no French film receives production approval without subtitles for the Deaf and an audio-description track, usable across cinema, video and television; loi 2021-1109 of 24 August 2021 extended the duty to online works.
the regulator's standing duties on subtitling and audio description for broadcasters, in force since 2005.
Obligated buyers: public and private broadcasters above the audience threshold, CNC-supported film production, online platforms since 2021, public services under the 2005 law, and every private product and service covered by the EU accessibility act since June 2025.
The gap
Where compliance exists in France, it is subtitles. The 2005 law obliges every channel above 2.5% of the audience to subtitle 100% of its programmes, and since 2020 every CNC-approved film ships with subtitles for the Deaf and audio description. Subtitles assume reading fluency in French; for the profoundly Deaf community the first language is LSF. The obligation is met on paper and missed in practice.
What we bring
These are patterns, not promises — each one happened somewhere, and each carries its source. The place is abstracted because the pattern is what transposes.
Pattern
A replicable template: the ordinance language, the budget logic and the service behind it travel together. Any city can copy it.
Two city ordinances — one on healthcare accessibility, one on cinema accessibility — have passed first reading, with ally as technical partner.
Receipt: Parañaque City Council records
Pattern
The platform exists before the first contract. Buyers pay for a service, not for research.
ally's pre-operating research and development was supported by a national science research grant and a city government grant.
Receipt: company fact
Pattern
Real usage, real feedback, and the model for any school or district that wants signed content on what students already watch.
A telco-funded 2021 pilot brought the platform to a Deaf school community of about 800 users.
Receipt: company fact
We publish our signals — including the zeros — on the impact page.
The partnership
The structure is a licensed market operation, built with the local community. Terms are discussed directly.
The playbook
The partner
Operators with standing in accessibility, media, telecom, or government services. Deaf-led organisations and entrepreneurs are explicitly welcome — the best operator of an accessibility market may come from the community itself. Investors are welcome alongside an operator, or to introduce one.
Why now
The obligations are already met — in subtitles. Arcom counts the hours, the CNC withholds approval, and none of it produces a signed frame. A partner who brings LSF to content that is already required to be accessible is not asking anyone for a new budget; the budget line exists. And France is an EU market: the playbook transposes across the single market under the same directive.
France transposes the European Accessibility Act, so a partner's playbook here is not confined to France — every EU member state carries an equivalent obligation under the same directive.
Next step
Write to us — by form, by email, or with a signed or spoken video message. From there: an introductory call, an NDA, the French market dossier, then terms.
Questions