France is poised to restrict access to social media for anyone under 15, the first European country to do so, and the latest in a wave of countries acting against what they view as malign effects of such services on minors.
The law, approved by France’s Senate on Tuesday and expected to be passed by the French Parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly, in the evening, could go into effect as soon as Sept. 1. It would also ban the use of cellphones in high schools, extending a prohibition that already applies to primary and middle schools.
And yet it was on social media that French officials hailed the move. “Digital majority: France leads the way,” declared Anne Le Hénanff, France’s minister for artificial intelligence and digital affairs. “France will be the first country in Europe to establish a digital majority” — meaning an online age limit — “to better protect our children online.”
The law, a personal cause of President Emmanuel Macron, is viewed a bellwether for other European countries, several of which are drafting their own laws. The measures come in response to concerns over online bullying and coercion, exposure to extreme content, the threat of predators and potential harm to mental health.
Last December, Australia became the world’s first country to bar anyone under 16 from using many social media apps. Britain and Canada moved toward similar measures last month, while Italy, Poland, Portugal, Spain have all drafted laws. The European Union is expected to introduce E.U.-wide measures in September.
But early evidence suggests that Australia’s ban has largely failed to keep young teenagers off social media. And enforcement of the French ban would likely fall to the European Union rather than the French government, which has limited legal tools to target major international internet platforms.
Social media companies have criticized age-related bans, saying they already employ safeguards to protect young users.
“France wants to push its own legislation to make the E.U. act, and the E.U. act fast,” said Jessica Galissaire, a senior policy researcher at Interface, a think tank based in Berlin. “I see it more as a political announcement.”
For Mr. Macron, who is term-limited and will step down in May 2027, it will likely be one of the last legislative milestones of his decade in office.
“It is clear that before the age of 15 or 16, social media is not a good thing,” Mr. Macron said last year. “This is because at that age, we have not yet sufficiently consolidated things on an affective, emotional and cognitive level.”
The president drew an analogy with laws restricting the consumption of alcohol by young people, which he said had changed behavior. “Sixty years ago, kids were served wine,” he said. “There may still be people who serve beer to infants, but in my opinion, they are not in a majority in the country today.”
France has staked out a strong position on reclaiming what officials call “technological sovereignty” from the United States and China, announcing plans to replace Zoom and other American software with French-developed alternatives. The new law can be seen within that context, Ms. Galissaire said, noting that, in France, the most popular social media platforms remained American and Chinese.
While the law is expected to pass comfortably, it has drawn opposition from some on the left, who say it does not adequately distinguish the services that must apply age verification. Lawmakers from France Unbowed, a far-left party, said they would vote against it because it threatened the principle of anonymity online.
Lawmakers from the Senate and National Assembly held prolonged negotiations on the law’s wording, mostly to bring it into compliance with European Union requirements. The European Union offered guidance on an earlier draft, which resulted in several provisions being stripped out.
Under the terms of the law, it would be up to social media platforms to use age verification systems to filter out underage users. There are exceptions that would allow young people to access online encyclopedias or other digital services with an educational purpose. The law does not provide for penalties against children or parents. Nor does it set out explicit penalties against the providers.
Most of the services targeted by the law are not based in France, which means the primary enforcement would fall to the main E.U. executive body, the European Commission. It would act through the Digital Safety Act, which seeks to protect children from harmful effects of social media.
The European Union recently received an expert report recommending that children under the age of 13 not have access to social media sites, unless they were supervised. The report recommended that 13- to 18-year-olds should only have access to platforms with safety features like limits on infinite scrolling. Children under the age of 3, it said, should have no screen time at all.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, is expected to introduce new measures in September. But it could take a year or two for them to be implemented, Ms. Galissaire said, which helped explain France’s urgency.
Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting.
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