Technology & Science
France Moves to Enforce Under-15 Social-Media Ban by September 2026
On 25 Jan 2026 President Emmanuel Macron ordered Parliament to use its accelerated procedure so a bill barring children under 15 from all major social-media platforms can take legal effect at the start of the 2026-27 school year in September.
Focusing Facts
- The draft, sponsored by MP Laure Miller, is scheduled for National Assembly debate on 26 Jan 2026 with the aim of Senate passage before 1 Sep 2026.
- ANSES data: 90 % of French 12-17-year-olds go online via smartphones daily; 58 % use them primarily for social networks.
- Australia’s December 2025 under-16 ban prompted tech firms to disable 4.7 million accounts within one month.
Context
States restricting children’s exposure to new industries is hardly new: Prussia’s 1839 factory act capped child labor at 10 hours, and the U.S. 1998 COPPA law tried to fence kids off from online data collection. Macron’s push sits in that lineage but also in the EU’s 25-year campaign (from the 1995 Data-Protection Directive to the 2024 Digital Services Act) to assert sovereignty over largely U.S.- and China-based platforms. The measure reinforces two long-term trends: the gradual transformation of the internet from a self-regulated commons into a space policed by age gates and liability rules, and Europe’s willingness to legislate first and test technical feasibility later. Whether the ban endures—COPA was struck down as unenforceable in 2009—will hinge on robust age-verification tech and EU-law compatibility; teenagers’ work-arounds may expose the policy’s limits. Still, on a 100-year horizon it signals the shift toward treating digital engagement like alcohol, gambling or tobacco: an activity the state may ration for minors, foreshadowing an internet that by 2100 could resemble a regulated utility more than today’s algorithmic bazaar.
Perspectives
Mainstream centrist news outlets covering France and allied nations
e.g., Channel 3000/CNN, The Indian Express, France 24 — Frame Macron’s proposal as a clear, common-sense public-health measure that will safeguard teens’ mental well-being and bring France into line with other democracies like Australia and the U.K. By largely echoing the government’s child-protection rhetoric and success stories abroad, these reports give scant attention to civil-liberty worries or to how the ban might be enforced, so readers mainly hear the upside of tighter regulation.
Outlets foregrounding academic debate and legal/ civil-liberties pitfalls
e.g., The Financial Express, RFI — Acknowledge the mental-health concerns but stress that evidence is mixed, researchers are divided and French MPs from the left warn of “digital paternalism,” hinting the ban may be simplistic or legally shaky under EU rules. By spotlighting scientific uncertainty and parliamentary dissent, these stories may underplay urgent parental anxieties and make the policy look premature, appealing to audiences wary of state overreach.
Right-leaning U.S. media
Fox News — Portrays the ban as another front in a worldwide effort to curb Big Tech’s manipulation of kids, highlighting lawsuits against TikTok and alarming statistics on self-harm and suicide links. Its narrative fits a broader conservative tendency to cast American tech firms as cultural villains while overlooking free-speech objections, aligning regulation with culture-war themes rather than nuanced policy analysis.