France's top court has blocked a bill banning social media access for under-15s, saying it infringed upon freedom of expression, a setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who asked the government to rewrite the legislation. The ruling came on 14 August. Separately reported detail holds that the Conseil constitutionnel censured Article 1 of the law, finding the under-15 social media ban disproportionate.
The court's decision targeted the broad scope of the ban, which applied to services meeting the definition of a social network under France's 2004 digital confidence law. The Council found that the general and absolute character of the prohibition made it a disproportionate restriction, an argument advanced by the political group LFI, which also contended the ban treated unlike things alike.
The school smartphone ban survives the ruling because the Council was asked to review only that single article. The smartphone restriction extending to lycées still starts on 1 September, and the government had placed the social media ban at the centre of its digital policy for the school year.
Parliament would need to draft new legislation to revive the social media prohibition.
The original text would have required platforms to submit age-verification proposals to Arcom, the audiovisual regulator, for approval by 1 September. The Council's concern centered on how such verification would work in practice, noting that preventing minors under 15 from accessing certain online services inherently requires every person, including adults, to prove their age before accessing them.
France had become the first European country to follow Australia's approach, after Australia enacted a world-first ban barring under-16s from platforms including Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube in December. The Elysee said Macron has ordered Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to rework the draft legislation to address the Council's concerns, with the president determined to have the reform take effect before Spring 2027.
The ruling arrives as the European Commission weighs its own response to children's social media use. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the body will propose limits on children using social media, with member states still split between age thresholds of 13, 15, and 16.
