French President Emmanuel Macron has announced plans to fast-track legislation that would ban children under the age of 15 from using social media, with the government aiming to enforce the measure before the next school year begins in September.
In a video message released late Saturday, Macron said the proposed law is intended to protect young people from online manipulation and harm. “The brains of our children and adolescents are not for sale,” he said. “Their emotions are not for sale or to be manipulated, whether by American platforms or Chinese algorithms.”
Under the proposal, access to social media platforms would be prohibited for under-15s, while the use of mobile phones in high schools would also be restricted. Macron described the move as a clear and necessary rule for teenagers, parents and educators.
The announcement places France among a growing number of Western countries seeking tougher online safety regulations for minors. In December, Australia passed landmark legislation banning under-16s from holding accounts on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. The British government has also indicated it is considering similar restrictions.
French lawmakers backing the proposal argue that existing safeguards have failed due to weak age-verification systems. One lawmaker involved in the process said current platforms rely largely on self-declared birth dates, making age limits ineffective.
“What we want to impose on platforms, by strictly enforcing the European Digital Services Act, is real age verification when you access a social network,” she said, adding that users would be required to prove whether they are over or under 15.
While acknowledging that some users may still attempt to bypass restrictions, supporters of the bill say decisive action is needed to better protect minors online.
Following Australia’s ban, authorities reported that more than 4.7 million social media accounts believed to belong to under-16s were deactivated or removed. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the policy was driven by mounting evidence of social harm and growing pressure from parents and young people.
“We know that social harm is being caused, and therefore we have a responsibility as a government to respond,” Albanese said, urging teenagers to spend more time on offline activities such as sports, music and reading.
However, the measures have attracted criticism. Elon Musk, owner of X, previously described Australia’s ban as a “backdoor war to control access to the Internet,” though the platform has complied with the law.
Debates around youth and social media have intensified globally, influenced in part by a 2024 book by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who argues that digital platforms have contributed significantly to declining mental health among children and adolescents.
“The basic argument is that we’ve overprotected our children in the real world and under-protected them online,” Haidt said. “We were wrong on both points.”