France's Constitutional Council has overturned a law that would have banned access to social media services for under-15s.
The decision halts - at least for now - a legislative project that would have made France the first European country to restrict minors' social media use so strictly. The law had been approved by the French parliament in July by a clear majority, and was set to come into force on September 1, 2026, but the court deemed it unconstitutional.
The Constitutional Council found (in French) that a general ban disproportionately restricts minors' freedom of speech and communication. The Council did acknowledge in its decision that the state has a constitutional obligation to protect the best interests of children and address the potential harms of social media to young people. However, it simultaneously stated that the legislator had not sufficiently demonstrated that the online services covered by the ban would pose proven risks to the health or safety of minors. The court therefore considered the solution too broad, as it would have applied one and the same rule to a wide variety of platforms categorized as "social media".
Another key legal issue concerned age verification. According to the Council, the ban would have practically required every user - including adults - to unequivocally prove their age before using the services. However, the law did not specify the conditions or technical solutions for this, nor did it contain sufficient legal guarantees on how users' privacy and data protection would be ensured. Without precise rules for implementing age verification, the court found that the bill left the door open to disproportionate surveillance and potential abuses.
The rejected law would have obliged large social media platforms to prevent the creation of new accounts for under-15s and to close existing accounts within a short transition period. Age limit enforcement would have had to be implemented with systems complying with French data protection legislation. The ban would have specifically targeted large commercial social media services, while, for example, online learning environments, online encyclopedias, and open-source software development platforms would have been excluded. The same legislative package also included other restrictions, such as banning smartphone use in high schools.
The decision is a political setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who has positioned himself as the most prominent supporter of the project and justified it with experts' concerns about youth mental health and social media addiction. However, Macron is not giving up on the goal. According to several sources, including ANSA, he has already tasked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu with drafting a new, refined bill, which is intended to be completed quickly and pushed through parliament by spring 2027.
France would have become the first major country to follow in Australia's footsteps: in Australia, social media services were banned for under-16s, and the law came into force there in December 2025.
Similar projects are underway in several European countries. Denmark is close to approving its own legislation, and in several other European countries, including Finland, UK and Austria, politicians also seem to be eager to get similar bans in place. Simultaneously, broader regulation is being prepared at the EU level: the Commission recently proposed the idea of banning social media use for under-13s across the Union, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that the matter will be officially discussed after the summer.
However, age limits are already partially in use in Europe, and they will come to us too, at the latest next year: the European Union's Digital Services Act requires that the largest adult entertainment sites use strong authentication to ensure minors cannot access their services. We reported last year how an EU-wide application capable of unequivocally proving age will soon be introduced across Europe for this purpose.
An inevitable side effect of age limit enforcement is that all adults must prove their age to access services in some way. If an airtight solution is desired, it practically requires a system based on strong authentication - or old-school paper IDs that need to be scanned. In such a case, every adult user will inevitably leave some kind of trace in the systems, based on which even accounts intended to be anonymous can theoretically be linked to a specific person. In other words, systems based on unequivocal age verification inevitably erode people's right to privacy. The parties involved in these legislative initiatives are therefore both young people, who can no longer access social media, and adults, who must surrender their personal data to use the services.
The Constitutional Council found (in French) that a general ban disproportionately restricts minors' freedom of speech and communication. The Council did acknowledge in its decision that the state has a constitutional obligation to protect the best interests of children and address the potential harms of social media to young people. However, it simultaneously stated that the legislator had not sufficiently demonstrated that the online services covered by the ban would pose proven risks to the health or safety of minors. The court therefore considered the solution too broad, as it would have applied one and the same rule to a wide variety of platforms categorized as "social media".
Another key legal issue concerned age verification. According to the Council, the ban would have practically required every user - including adults - to unequivocally prove their age before using the services. However, the law did not specify the conditions or technical solutions for this, nor did it contain sufficient legal guarantees on how users' privacy and data protection would be ensured. Without precise rules for implementing age verification, the court found that the bill left the door open to disproportionate surveillance and potential abuses.
The rejected law would have obliged large social media platforms to prevent the creation of new accounts for under-15s and to close existing accounts within a short transition period. Age limit enforcement would have had to be implemented with systems complying with French data protection legislation. The ban would have specifically targeted large commercial social media services, while, for example, online learning environments, online encyclopedias, and open-source software development platforms would have been excluded. The same legislative package also included other restrictions, such as banning smartphone use in high schools.
The decision is a political setback for President Emmanuel Macron, who has positioned himself as the most prominent supporter of the project and justified it with experts' concerns about youth mental health and social media addiction. However, Macron is not giving up on the goal. According to several sources, including ANSA, he has already tasked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu with drafting a new, refined bill, which is intended to be completed quickly and pushed through parliament by spring 2027.
France would have become the first major country to follow in Australia's footsteps: in Australia, social media services were banned for under-16s, and the law came into force there in December 2025.
Similar projects are underway in several European countries. Denmark is close to approving its own legislation, and in several other European countries, including Finland, UK and Austria, politicians also seem to be eager to get similar bans in place. Simultaneously, broader regulation is being prepared at the EU level: the Commission recently proposed the idea of banning social media use for under-13s across the Union, and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced that the matter will be officially discussed after the summer.
However, age limits are already partially in use in Europe, and they will come to us too, at the latest next year: the European Union's Digital Services Act requires that the largest adult entertainment sites use strong authentication to ensure minors cannot access their services. We reported last year how an EU-wide application capable of unequivocally proving age will soon be introduced across Europe for this purpose.
An inevitable side effect of age limit enforcement is that all adults must prove their age to access services in some way. If an airtight solution is desired, it practically requires a system based on strong authentication - or old-school paper IDs that need to be scanned. In such a case, every adult user will inevitably leave some kind of trace in the systems, based on which even accounts intended to be anonymous can theoretically be linked to a specific person. In other words, systems based on unequivocal age verification inevitably erode people's right to privacy. The parties involved in these legislative initiatives are therefore both young people, who can no longer access social media, and adults, who must surrender their personal data to use the services.
