French lawmakers expected to approve under-15 social media ban

French lawmakers were expected on 21 July to approve a bill banning children under 15 from using social media, a step that would put France among the leading European Union countries pursuing tighter rules on children's online access.

Members of the upper and lower houses reached a compromise on the bill on Monday, clearing the way for a final vote that was expected to pass despite criticism from left-wing parties. French Digital Minister Anne Le Henanff said on X that France would become the first country in Europe to introduce a digital age limit to better protect children online.

President Emmanuel Macron has backed the law as a key reform of his final term and has pledged to enforce it by September. That timing would also put another part of the bill, a mobile phone ban in secondary schools, in place by the start of the school year.

The social media measure is expected to be introduced in two stages. From September 1, children under 15 would be blocked from creating new accounts. From January 2027, the ban would apply to existing accounts, according to the bill text.

Lawmakers agreed that regulation was needed after repeated warnings about possible harm to children. France's public health watchdog said last year that platforms including TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram were harmful to adolescents, especially girls, although it said social media was not the only reason for worsening mental health.

The two chambers had disagreed over the structure of the rules. Senators had supported a two-tier system, separating platforms blacklisted as harmful to child development from platforms that children could still use with parental consent. The lower house's broader approach prevailed, requiring social media platforms to refuse new users under 15 and suspend accounts belonging to children below that age. The bill includes exceptions for sites such as online encyclopaedias and educational platforms.

Centrist senator Catherine Morin-Desailly, who was in charge of the bill in the upper house, said the blacklisting system would have taken longer because it would have required new consultations with the European Commission on the criteria. She also said it carried a small risk of not complying with European law.

The European Union has also been considering a social media ban after France, Greece, Spain and other member states pushed for access limits. Last week, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said children should have phased and gradual access to social media.

Enforcement is expected to depend on effective age-verification systems. Lawmaker Laure Miller told AFP that platforms would be expected to integrate the tool or tools of their choice. Options include an age-verification app unveiled by the European Commission in April.

If adopted, the law would make France part of a group of more than 20 countries that have moved to regulate children's access to social media. Australia became the first country in the world in December last year to require TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat and other major sites to remove accounts held by under-16s or face heavy fines.