France Constitutional Council Rejects Social Media Ban for Under-15s

France’s Constitutional Council has struck down a planned government ban on social media use for minors under 15, ruling that the sweeping measure violates freedom of expression. The legislation, which was initially scheduled to take effect on September 1, 2026, would have restricted young users from major platforms including TikTok, Snapchat, X, and Instagram. Following the high court’s rejection, President Emmanuel Macron ordered his administration to draw up a revised legal framework.

The Free Expression and Age-Verification Barrier

The high court’s decision zeroes in on a sharp constitutional clash between child protection and civil liberties. Magistrates ruled that the legislation constituted a “disproportionate vulnerability” of youth free expression under Article 1 of the proposed law. The court pulled no punches, criticizing the measure for lacking adequate technical and legal guarantees. The text failed to outline clear conditions for mandatory age verification—a mechanism that would force both adults and minors to prove their age before accessing covered services.

Without explicit statutory limits governing how age data is collected and managed, lawmakers left a gaping legal hole. The rejected law was designed to block minors under 15 from creating new accounts starting September 1. This would have given tech companies a four-month window to phase out existing profiles ahead of Macron’s target timeline before the spring 2027 elections. The broad scope of the text targeted traditional social feeds, communication spaces on YouTube, messaging protocols like WhatsApp and Messenger, and select online video games.

Parliamentary Speed and European Precedents

The statute had previously advanced swiftly through the French parliament. RTVE reporting shows the Executive branch secured approval on July 21, 2026, pulling 243 votes in the Senate and 279 in the National Assembly. Lawmakers acted amid mounting anxiety over the effects of these platforms on the health and security of this population sector. Even so, tech platforms and internal critics immediately questioned how the infrastructure could scale securely without violating strict European data protection standards.

France’s initiative sought to mirror international efforts, most notably Australia’s December 2025 legislation restricting social media access for children under 16. Yet, integrating such restrictions inside the European Union demands careful harmonization with EU-level digital directives. Laure Miller, a representative from the Renaissance party, previously clarified that verification would target content channels, comment sections, and social functionalities, while raw messaging or video-viewing functions might escape strict categorization. Major tech companies countered these plans by asserting that existing platform safeguards are already sufficient.

Macron Orders Urgent Legislative Overhaul

President Macron has directed Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to draft a legally sound replacement text with maximum urgency. Lecornu’s team must now re-engineer the proposal to satisfy constitutional magistrates while keeping it aligned with broader European regulatory frameworks. Until a revised architecture is drafted, debated, and approved, minors living in France maintain legal access to major online platforms, keeping the debate over digital age gates at the forefront of European tech policy.

Photo: rtve.es