Macron announces France will ‘ban social media’ for under 15s if EU does not
Facial recognition technology could be used to assess age of social media users
The president made the announcement following fatal stabbing by secondary school pupil. Photo for illustrative purposes only
Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock
French President Emmanuel Macron has laid out plans to ban social media for under-15s in France, with or without the EU.
Mr Macron made the announcement last night (June 10) in an interview following the fatal stabbing of a school supervisor by a 14-year old pupil in Nogent, Haute-Marne. Social media was said to be a factor in the attack,
“We must ban social media for children under 15,” said the president in an interview with France2.
“I give us a few months to achieve European action. Otherwise…we will start doing it in France [without the EU]. We cannot wait,” he added.
France passed a law in 2023 that saw parental consent required for under-15s to use social media sites, however it has yet to be implemented over concerns on if it is compliant with wider European rules.
In 2024, the president announced plans to ban social media usage for under-15s during the snap legislative election campaign, citing expert advice on the matter.
The president said yesterday that France is in an ‘age of social media’, with the younger generation now being raised on these apps.
In turn, he said this is a generation that is more and more violent.
EU will not support bloc-wide law change
Denmark and Greece are reportedly in favour of a ban on social media usage for under-15s, and the Spanish parliament is set to discuss a law restricting usage for under-16s (although the date of the debate has not yet been scheduled).
However, the EU has clarified that the age of ‘digital majority’ – when the state believes children are old enough to use these sites – is up to each country to decide and will not be subject to EU-wide laws.
The bloc is instead in favour of improving safety through measures implemented by social media companies themselves.
How could the ban work?
Major sites including Instagram, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, and Snapchat would be affected by any rule changes.
While there are no official plans yet, the ban could work using measures similar to those already in place for people to prove their identity to access other sensitive sites.
These most recently came into effect in France for pornographic websites, with all users needing to provide a photo of their face or a piece of ID to gain access to material.
Mr Macron hinted that the same technology could be used for access to social media.
“All these platforms have the ability to verify age through facial recognition or identifiers… We know how to do facial recognition,” he said.
For its part, social media giant Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) has called for age verification to be tied to a smartphone’s App or Play store (where applications including for social media are downloaded), or on the operating system of the device itself.
