About the achiral reference. The achiral reference Y of a chiral d-dimensional set X of n points is defined as being the optimally superposed mirrored image of X via the least-square method. The achiral reference is shown to exist in various situations when d ≤ 2, and sufficient conditions of existence are given for any d value. A first-kind continuous chirality measure is defined from the achiral reference. To cite this article: M. Petitjean, C. R. Chimie 9 (2006).