France sends reworked social media ban for under-15s to Brussels

The French government has sent the European Commission a new version of its plan to keep children under 15 off social networks, one month after the country's Constitutional Council censured the original law. President Emmanuel Macron announced the notification on Monday 14 September 2026.

The reworked draft drops the outright ban that the Council struck down and instead restricts specific platform features, from endless scrolling to overnight alerts, that ministers judge harmful to the young. The text must now clear a check against European Union law, and Brussels is preparing proposals of its own.

Why the first law fell

The Constitutional Council (Conseil constitutionnel) issued its ruling on 14 August, censuring the central article of the law adopted by the French Parliament and halting the ban before it could take effect. While recognising the legitimacy of protecting childhood, and "the constitutional requirement to protect the best interests of the child", the Council found that a strict and general ban on signing up under-15s was a "disproportionate" infringement on the freedom of expression and communication of adolescents.

The first text had imposed a mass and uniform block, seen in legal terms as an "excessive obstacle" to access to information and to exchanges between citizens for an entire age group.

What the new text targets

According to a source within the French executive, the government now proposes to list around ten "features" judged harmful or addictive for the youngest users, including the automatic playback of videos, streams of notifications at night and communication with unknown accounts. Official descriptions also point to continuous algorithmic recommendation feeds that invite endless scrolling, intrusive night-time notifications, and access to unmoderated content or direct contact with unknown adults.

These are the mechanics the government links to child social media addiction, describing features it judges dangerous for children's mental health. Minors would instead be able to use restricted or educational versions of platforms, which the government says preserves their right to be informed and to communicate, and answers the Council's requirements. Listing features would also let France target the networks concerned without naming any of them, which European rules would not allow, the executive source said. The draft provides exemptions for adolescents aged 13 to 15, on the decision of their legal representatives.

The notification to the Commission is intended to verify that the future law fits the European framework, notably the Digital Services Act, which places the regulation of platforms at supranational level. The first draft had drawn criticism over potential incompatibility with that law, and the timing is deliberate: Brussels is working on strengthened protection of minors online.

Macron: "We will see it through"

"Since day one I have made a commitment: to protect our children online. We will see it through," Macron wrote on X. He said he had charged the Prime Minister, Sébastien Lecornu, with finding "a way through" that respected both the Council's observations and European law, and that this had now been done. "After rigorous technical work, the government is today notifying new wording to the Commission, one month after the Council's decision," he wrote.

The president, who has made the measure a central cause of the end of his second term, hopes a ban will be operational in France when he leaves the Élysée in the spring. In late August he wrote to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to press for a "European text" establishing "a ban on access to social media platforms for under-15s" across the Union. "This protection must also become the norm for all European children," he added on Monday.

Brussels prepares its own plan

Von der Leyen is to set out her proposals on Wednesday in her address to the European Parliament marking the political return. A European source said she was considering a ban for under-15s that could be lifted for those aged 13 to 15 by parental decision, an approach that appears close to the new French version. "We do not have to accept the addictive features of social networks," she said on Thursday in a video posted on X, adding that children are being "pushed towards ever more extreme content".

The wider picture

Concerns about harm to children on the platforms have also produced regulation and litigation elsewhere. In the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office issues the Children's code, formally called "Age appropriate design", guidance that applies to apps, games, websites and social media children are likely to use, even when those services are not made for children. In the United States, a Los Angeles jury found on 25 March 2026 that Meta, which owns Instagram, and Google, which owns YouTube, were liable in a social media addiction lawsuit brought in the case of a young woman known as K.G.M. The jury awarded £4.5 million ($6 million) in total, made up of $3 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages, attributing 70% of the blame to Meta and 30% to Google. Product law may also be adapting: the Consumer Protection Act 1987 has usually treated a product as a physical item, but one lawyer has suggested social media firms could be seen as makers of a digital space, and the Law Commission is examining whether the Act fits the digital age.

The next step falls to Brussels. Von der Leyen presents her proposals to the European Parliament on Wednesday, and Macron closed his message by pledging that France would give its full support "with demanding standards and determination", adding: "We will not let up."

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