France's Constitutional Council struck down a law banning social media use by children under 15 on Friday, ruling that the measure — one of the first blanket bans of its kind in the European Union — violated the constitutional right to freedom of expression and communication.
The council, France's highest constitutional authority, found that the ban amounted to a disproportionate restriction on speech and that lawmakers had drafted it too broadly, sweeping in platforms and services without evidence that each posed a specific risk to minors. Judges also faulted the bill for failing to account for individual minors' circumstances and for the age-verification checks it would have required, saying they raised unresolved privacy concerns.
The law had passed the French parliament in July with a large majority, alongside a companion measure banning phones in high schools, and was due to take effect this September. It would have made France the first European Union country to impose a nationwide, blanket ban on social media access for children under 15 — a step campaigners on child online safety had watched closely as a possible model for other EU governments, and one platforms had lobbied hard against.
Macron pushes for a narrower rewrite
President Emmanuel Macron, for whom the ban had been one of his signature remaining legislative priorities before his second term ends next year, said Friday he remained determined to see restrictions on children's social media use take effect by spring. He tasked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu with drafting a replacement that is "legally robust" and takes into account both the council's objections and the European Union's existing digital-rights framework, which governs how member states can regulate platforms operating across the bloc.
Any new version will need to thread a narrower needle than the original bill — distinguishing between platforms or features that pose demonstrable risks to younger users and a blanket prohibition the council found swept too broadly, while also resolving how age verification could work without compromising users' privacy, the specific defect judges cited.
The ruling is a setback for a wider European push to restrict children's access to social media, following growing concern among regulators and pediatric health groups over links between heavy platform use and mental health problems in adolescents. France's setback will likely be studied closely by other EU governments weighing similar restrictions, several of which have been watching Paris's approach as a test case for how far such bans can go without running into free-expression protections.