France’s Top Court Strikes Down Social Media Ban For Under-15s

France’s Constitutional Council has struck down a law banning children under 15 from accessing social media, ruling that the measure disproportionately infringed their freedom of expression and communication.

The country’s top constitutional authority issued the ruling on Friday, dealing a setback to President Emmanuel Macron’s government, which had backed the restriction as part of efforts to protect children from potential harms associated with social media.

The council found that the provision banning under-15s from accessing certain online services was not “appropriate, necessary, nor proportionate” to the freedom of expression and communication guaranteed to them.

It also raised concerns about the law’s age-verification requirements, noting that the restriction would effectively require adults to prove their age before accessing affected services.

“By prohibiting minors under the age of fifteen from accessing certain online services, the law inherently requires every person, even an adult, to prove their age before accessing them,” the Constitutional Council said in its decision.

According to the council, lawmakers had failed to establish sufficient safeguards specifying how and under what conditions such age verification should take place.

The law had been approved by French lawmakers in July and was intended to take effect from September. If implemented, France would have become the first European country to impose a nationwide ban on social media access for people under 15.

The decision means the French government will have to either abandon the measure or revise the legislation and submit it to Parliament again.

Macron had made protecting children online a key priority and had supported the proposed restrictions as concerns grow across Europe over social media’s impact on young people.

The ruling comes after Australia introduced the world’s first nationwide social-media age restriction, barring children under 16 from accessing major platforms.