Public authorities that manage a large number of buildings when they are confronted with diagnostic of seismic vulnerability of their existing building stock, often wonder how to find a tool to identify those buildings really prior, for which where more complex studies or reinforcement actions have priortyshould be necessary in a first time. In Switzerland, the OFEG (Swiss Office for the Environment) applies a method consistent following in 3 steps, where being the 1st onestep consists in a seismic inventory of the building stock. The goal of the step 1 is to hierarchize class the building stocks in 4 classes of priority. This step 1 inventory takes into account the following parameters: 1) the constructive characteristics, which means: age of construction and application or not of seismic codes, structural system, type and disposition of bracing elements, foundation, plan form; 2) the seismic zone from national hazard map within is situated the building and 3) the importance of the building, the number of people indoors, the frequency of occupation during the year and the economic value of the building. All these parameters are evaluated using a check-list and they are combined into two numerical indicators: WZ damage probability and AZPS potential losses. Four combinations of these two indicators are used to obtain the 4 priority groups. This article presents the adaptation done to French continental context of OFEV's method step 1 and the comparison with results using standard visual vulnerability diagnostic forms which do not considers explicitly occupancy or building value. The method has been applied for whole buildings of public Secondary Schools managed by the Languedoc-Roussillon Regional Council in Pyrenees-Orientales French department.
