French Lawmakers Vote To Ban Social Media Use For Kids Under 15
French lawmakers have now passed a bill that would ban social media use for kids under the age of 15. This move is fully supported by president Emmanuel Macron, citing it as an ideal way to protect children from excessive screen time, mental health problems birthed from social media, and addiction.
In a long overnight session from Monday to Tuesday, the lower national assembly adopted the text by a vote of 130 to 21, according to reports. Now, the bill will move to France’s upper house, the Senate, before becoming an official law.
In an online post, Macron stated that the vote was a “major step” to further protect French children and teenagers.
The legislation will also work to ban mobile phones in high schools. This major move follows Australia’s social media ban for all under-16s in December, and would make France the second nation to enact a ban of this precedent.
All over the world, the growth of social media has had a major impact on children and teenagers throughout their developmental years. In a video broadcast last weekend, Macron stated that the “emotions of our children and teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, either by American platforms or Chinese algorithms.”
According to the Guardian, French authorities want the social media limitations to be implemented from the beginning of the 2026 school year for newly made accounts.
Former prime minister Gabriel Attal, who currently leads Macron’s Renaissance party in the lower house, is hoping that the Senate passes the bill by mid-February so that it will be implemented on September 1st.
“Social media platforms will then have until December 31st to deactivate existing accounts that do not comply with the age limit.”
Attal also emphasized that this legislation would counteract a “number of powers that, through social media platforms, want to colonize minds.”
“France can be a pioneer in Europe in a month: we can change the lives of our young people and our families, and perhaps also change the destiny of our country in terms of independence.”
The French Agency for Food, Environmental, and Occupational Health & Safety (ANSES) said that this month, they have observed and recorded multiple negative effects on adolescents from social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. These risks, which were seen more in girls as well, included cyberbullying and exposure to violent/inappropriate content.
If fully passed, this legislation will enforce that “access to an online social networking service provided by an online platform is prohibited for minors under the age of 15.” The draft of the bill also excludes the use of online encyclopedias and other educational platforms.
In order to enforce this, there needs to be an effective age verification system put into place, which is “under way at the European level,” reports state.
Back in 2018, France banned children between the ages of 11 and 15 from using mobile phones at school, and now Macron wants to extend that ban to high schools as well.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
