France moves to ban social media for minors

The proposed legislation would also prohibit smartphones in high schools

France’s lower house of parliament has approved a bill banning social media use for children under 15, a measure backed by President Emmanuel Macron to curb excessive screen time.

The National Assembly passed the legislation 130 to 21 in an overnight session from Monday to Tuesday. The bill now moves to the Senate before it can become law.

If passed by the Senate, France would become the second country after Australia to impose nationwide social media restrictions for children.

The legislation would also prohibit smartphones in all French high schools. Macron has urged lawmakers to fast-track the bill so it can take effect by the start of the school year in September.

In a video shared with broadcaster BFMTV on Saturday, Macron said children’s brains and emotions “are not for sale” and should not be manipulated “by American platforms nor Chinese algorithms.”

France’s public health agency, ANSES, said earlier this month that platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat, and Instagram can have harmful effects on adolescents, particularly girls.

The French legislation comes amid a growing international push to regulate children’s online activity. Australia became the first country to bar children under 16 from platforms including TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook in December. Companies that fail to comply face fines of up to A$50 million ($33 million).

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US and Chinese social media giants Meta, TikTok, and YouTube are also facing their first-ever product liability trial in Los Angeles over claims they knowingly designed their platforms to be addictive to children.

Meta is under widening regulatory and legal scrutiny worldwide. In the EU, the company has been hit with a €797 million antitrust fine linked to Facebook Marketplace and is the subject of separate copyright, data-protection, and targeted advertising cases in Spain, France, Germany, and Norway.

TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, has faced a series of lawsuits since its launch, including cases focused on its data-collection practices. In the US, the platform and its parent company have been sued over allegations they failed to adequately protect children’s privacy.