The French National Assembly has taken the first step toward banning social media access for children under 15, with support from President Emmanuel Macron.
On Monday, House lawmakers agreed to key elements of the bill and are now expected to vote on the full text. The bill still needs to be approved by the Senate, the upper house of parliament.
If the bill is passed, teenagers will not be able to use networks such as Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok.
France’s move is part of a global trend to limit children’s social networks, prompted by growing evidence that social networks can harm their mental health. A similar bill was passed in Australia at the end of last year.
Laure Miller, the lawmaker who introduced the bill, was quoted in Le Monde as saying, “With this law we will set clear limits on society.”
“We are saying something very simple: social networks are not harmless,” she added.
“These networks promised to bring people together. They separated them. They promised to inform. They saturated us with information. They promised to entertain. They shut people out.”
Macron has said he wants the ban in place before schools start in September.
“We cannot leave our children’s mental and emotional health in the hands of people whose sole purpose is to make money,” he said last month.
The new provisions will lead state media regulators to compile a list of social media networks they deem harmful. It is simply prohibited for anyone under the age of 15.
You can access a separate list of supposedly less harmful sites, but only with explicit parental permission.
This bill is believed to have a high chance of passing as parties supporting Macron, the center-right Republican Party (LR), and the populist right-wing National Coalition (RN) are likely to join in.
Another provision prohibits the use of cell phones in high schools (lise). The ban is already in effect in middle schools and middle schools.
If the bill passes, France would have to agree to an age verification mechanism. A system is already in place requiring people over 18 to prove their age when accessing online pornography.
In Europe, Denmark, Greece, Spain and Ireland are also considering following Australia’s example. Earlier this month, the UK government launched a consultation on banning social media for under-16s.
The basis for the proposed French law is a text written late last year by lawmaker Laure Miller, who chaired a parliamentary committee inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok and other networks.
Separately, the government has been instructed to draft its own legislation after President Macron decided to make the issue a key issue in the final days of his term.
The president has been sidelined from domestic politics since Congress hung in a general election he called in 2024, and the social media ban was a rare opportunity to win public favor.
For a while, the cause risked becoming a victim of squabbles between Macron and one-time prime minister Gabriel Attal (Miller is an MP for Atal’s party). But in the end, the government appears to have come together in support of the Miller Bill.
If approved, the bill will pass the Senate, the upper house of parliament, next month. Macron said he had asked Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu’s government to expedite the bill by September.
Without resorting to fast-tracking (which allows one reading rather than two readings in each chamber), the law would have little chance of getting through the legislative backlog created by Lecornu’s difficulties passing the budget.
The bill has already had to be rewritten to take into account issues raised by the Council of State, the body that pre-examines draft legislation to ensure it complies with French and European law.
A 2023 law proposing a similar social media ban for teenagers was ruled invalid after a court ruled it violated European law.
