MDPH Appeal in France: What to Do When Your Application Is Rejected

An MDPH rejection letter feels devastating, especially after you've spent months assembling a dossier. But it is not the end of the road. France's administrative law system provides a formal appeal pathway — and for families who missed support because of an incorrect decision, using it correctly can make a significant difference.

The critical thing to understand: appeals in France are time-limited and formal. If you miss the window or use the wrong procedure, you lose the right to challenge the decision entirely.

Understanding the Decision You Received

The CDAPH (Commission des Droits et de l'Autonomie des Personnes Handicapées) issues a written notification (notification de décision) after reviewing your dossier. This notification will either:

• Grant the requested support in full (AESH individual, AESH mutualized, ULIS placement, financial allowance, etc.)
• Grant partial support (mutualized AESH when you requested individual, fewer hours than requested)
• Refuse all support

For full refusals, the notification must include the reasons. Read the reasoning carefully. In many cases, refusals are based on insufficient functional evidence in the dossier — the evaluators concluded that the described difficulties did not meet the threshold for the requested support. This is useful information for the appeal: you know exactly what needs to be strengthened.

Partial decisions — particularly mutualized vs. individual AESH — are also worth appealing if the mutualized allocation is genuinely insufficient for your child's needs.

The Two Types of Appeals

French administrative law provides two appeal routes after a CDAPH decision.

1. Recours Gracieux

The simplest option. You write directly to the CDAPH requesting that they reconsider the decision. There are no strict procedural requirements — you explain why you believe the decision is incorrect and provide additional evidence. The CDAPH may review the file and issue a revised notification, or they may confirm the original decision.

A recours gracieux is most appropriate when you have new evidence (a recent specialist report, an updated school assessment) that wasn't in the original dossier and that directly addresses the stated reason for refusal.

2. Recours Administratif Préalable Obligatoire (RAPO)

The RAPO is a mandatory first step before you can escalate to a court. It is a formal registered letter (lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception, LRAR) sent to the Président de la CDAPH of your département, explicitly disputing the decision. "Mandatory" means exactly that: you cannot take the case to a tribunal without having first filed a RAPO.

Deadline: two months from the date of the notification.

This is a hard deadline. If you send the RAPO after two months, it will be refused as late (irrecevable), and you lose the right to escalate further. Mark the date on the notification letter and act immediately.

After receiving the RAPO, the CDAPH has two months to respond. If they don't respond within two months, that silence is itself treated as a rejection — at which point you can escalate to a tribunal.

When to Escalate to a Tribunal

If the RAPO is rejected (or ignored), your next step is the Pôle Social du Tribunal Judiciaire (formerly the Tribunal du Contentieux de l'Incapacité) for disputes specifically concerning MDPH decisions about disability recognition and compensation. For disputes about the school's obligation to implement an approved MDPH notification, the relevant court is the Tribunal Administratif.

Tribunal procedures are more formal and benefit from legal representation. Organizations like the Défenseur des Droits (the French Ombudsman) can provide free guidance and may intervene directly in cases of systemic administrative failure.

What If the MDPH Simply Hasn't Responded?

If you submitted a complete dossier — including the certified acknowledgment of receipt (accusé de réception) — and four months pass without a decision, French law treats the silence as an implicit rejection (décision implicite de rejet). This is governed by the Code de l'action sociale et des familles, not the general administrative silence-equals-agreement rule that applies elsewhere.

Once that four-month mark passes without a response, your two-month window to file a RAPO opens. Waiting passively beyond those six months combined (4 months processing + 2 months RAPO window) closes your legal options entirely.

Building a Stronger Second Application

In many cases, the most effective response to a rejection is not solely the appeal pathway but a combination: file the RAPO to preserve your legal rights, and simultaneously strengthen the dossier for renewal.

MDPH decisions are not permanent. Most grants are time-limited (1, 3, or 5 years) and require renewal. A rejection simply means the current evidence was insufficient for the current request. A well-constructed renewal with stronger functional documentation can reverse the outcome.

What makes a stronger second application:

More specific functional evidence. Generic descriptions of the condition are not enough. The EPE needs concrete evidence of daily functional limitation — how the child functions in the classroom, during transitions, at lunch, in group settings. Ask your child's teachers, therapists, and specialists for written observations that go beyond the diagnosis and describe actual behavior.

A stronger Projet de Vie. If the original narrative was brief or vague, rewrite it. The Projet de Vie should describe a typical school day in detail, specific incidents that illustrate why continuous support is needed, and the impact on the family of not having that support.

AESH type justification. If you requested individual AESH (AESH-i) and received mutualized (AESH-m), or received fewer hours than requested, your appeal or renewal dossier needs an explicit clinical or pedagogical argument for why shared support is insufficient. A letter from a specialist making this case is very helpful.

If the AESH Was Approved but Never Provided

A separate but common problem: the CDAPH grants AESH support, but the local DSDEN (Direction des Services Départementaux de l'Éducation Nationale) fails to assign an assistant at the start of the academic year. France's ongoing AESH staffing shortage means this happens to thousands of families each year.

In this situation, the legal framework is clear: under Article L112-1 of the Code de l'éducation, the State has an absolute obligation to provide the resources mandated by an MDPH notification. The school cannot refuse the child's admission on the grounds that no AESH is available.

If your approved AESH is not in place, the correct escalation path is:

1. Send a formal mise en demeure (demand for compliance) by LRAR to the DASEN (Directeur Académique des Services de l'Éducation Nationale), demanding immediate assignment.
2. If no response within a reasonable period, file an emergency injunction (référé-liberté or référé-suspension) before the Tribunal Administratif to compel the State to act.

The France Special Education Blueprint includes letter templates for both the RAPO and the mise en demeure, along with a timeline guide for navigating the appeal process step by step.

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