French mayor's call to cut minors' social media access hits legal limits

A French mayor has proposed cutting minors' access to social media during periods of civil unrest, after an arson attack on a lycée in his town. But the idea, prompted by the school protest movement that began in mid-September, runs into a French court ruling that struck down a similar ban and into the limits of European law.

Nicolas Isnard, the mayor of Salon-de-Provence and a member of Les Républicains, called on the government after Saturday's fire at one of his town's schools to adopt "a mechanism to temporarily cut access to social networks for minors during periods of major tension". He accuses TikTok, Instagram, Telegram and Snapchat of amplifying the aggression seen at some demonstrations and of helping to organise gatherings.

His proposal comes as calls for a "black week" of protests have circulated on social media, and as the school protest movement, which began quietly in the Val-de-Marne, has been partly overshadowed by violence at demonstrations.

The New Caledonia precedent

France has tried something similar before. In May 2024, then Prime Minister Gabriel Attal ordered TikTok blocked in New Caledonia during riots there, an unprecedented measure aimed at limiting contact between rioters. The following year, the Conseil d'État, France's highest administrative court, ruled the ban unlawful, finding it "a disproportionate interference with freedom of expression, freedom to communicate ideas and opinions and freedom of access to information", not least because its duration depended solely on how long the disturbances continued.

The court did accept that in "exceptional circumstances" such a shutdown could be lawful, but only if it met three conditions: it had to be indispensable in the face of events of particular gravity, no technical means had to exist for immediately taking alternative measures, and it had to be limited to the time needed to find and put those alternatives in place.

The European framework

Any French block would also have to fit the Digital Services Act (DSA), the EU regulation on digital services. It allows a crisis mechanism that can impose measures on major platforms, such as suspending features, but only through a procedure at European level, and a permanent ban is not provided for. The toughest sanction available, a temporary suspension, requires a judge's decision and comes only after a fine of up to 6% of the platform's global annual turnover.

"Whatever happens, in France, blocking a platform or social network can only take place at the end of a judicial procedure. Even when the applicant is an administration," said Alexandre Archambault, a lawyer specialising in digital law, on X.

There is a further obstacle. Unlike the New Caledonia ban, which applied to everyone, the proposal would target only minors, which would require checking users' ages. That is the very problem at the heart of France's project to ban social networks for under-15s, which the Conseil constitutionnel censured in mid-August. No legal mechanism currently exists for such a targeted block during unrest. A different route, working with the platforms themselves, has been used before: in 2023, after the death of Nahel, the authorities worked with TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter and Meta to remove unlawful content such as calls to violence, and discussed limiting features including geolocation.

The wider picture in Europe

France has not abandoned the under-15 ban. On Monday 14 September, after the constitutional censure, the government submitted a revised version to the European Commission. "After rigorous technical work, the government is today notifying new wording to the Commission, a month after the Conseil constitutionnel's decision," President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X, adding "we will see it through". The new text lists around ten features considered harmful or addictive, such as automatic video playback, overnight notification streams and contact with unknown accounts, and allows exceptions for 13 to 15-year-olds on the decision of their legal guardians.

Ursula von der Leyen was due to set out her own proposals on Wednesday in her address to the European Parliament, and a European source said she was considering a ban for under-15s, which could be lifted for 13 to 15-year-olds at parents' discretion. "We do not have to accept the addictive features of social networks," she said in a video last week, "or children being pushed towards ever more extreme content."

Families who want to know more can read about the case against the platforms.