# French lawmakers back ban on social media for under-15s
IO Digest Desk
French lawmakers have passed a bill that would ban social media use by children under 15, moving the proposal one step closer to becoming law.
The lower house adopted the text in an overnight session by a vote of 130 to 21, according to AFP reporting carried by The Guardian. The legislation now goes to the Senate. If it eventually takes effect, it would make France the second country to adopt a national social media age ban after Australia introduced a similar rule for under-16s in December.
President Emmanuel Macron has made the issue a political priority, framing the bill as a response to concerns that social media is harming child development and mental health. He argued that children’s emotions should not be manipulated by American platforms or Chinese algorithms. Former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who leads Macron’s Renaissance party in the lower house, said he hoped the Senate would pass the bill quickly enough for the ban to begin on 1 September, with existing non-compliant accounts to be deactivated by the end of the year.
The bill is not limited to social media. It also includes a ban on mobile phones in high schools, extending a previous restriction introduced in 2018 that barred mobile phone use in French middle schools. The draft law excludes encyclopedias and educational platforms and says access to an online social networking service would be prohibited for minors under 15.
That prohibition would require age verification systems that do not yet exist at the necessary scale. The Guardian’s report said such systems are being developed at European level, but no simple implementation path has been set out. That technical hurdle is one reason the bill’s eventual effect remains uncertain even after the parliamentary vote.
Supporters argue that policymakers have been too slow to respond to the documented risks of constant platform use. France’s public health watchdog ANSES said this month that services such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram can harm adolescents in multiple ways, particularly girls, while also contributing to cyberbullying and exposure to violent content. Attal and other backers say the law would help protect teenagers and pressure platforms to take responsibility for how their services affect young users.
The bill has also drawn criticism from lawmakers and child protection groups. Hard-left MP Arnaud Saint-Martin called it digital paternalism and said it oversimplified the problem. Nine child protection associations urged lawmakers to hold platforms accountable rather than simply banning children from social media.
Former prime minister Élisabeth Borne voiced reservations too, saying the issue is more complicated and that France should first make sure the existing school phone ban is properly enforced. That tension between political urgency and practical implementation will now move to the Senate, where the measure’s future will be tested.
For now, the National Assembly vote marks a notable shift in Europe’s debate over youth online safety: away from a focus on platform guidance and toward direct age-based restriction backed by the state. Whether France can translate that ambition into workable enforcement will determine whether the bill becomes a model or remains mostly symbolic.
