France approved a regulation on July 21 banning children under 15 from opening accounts on social media platforms. The regulation will be reviewed by the Constitutional Council before taking effect.
Under the text, children under 15 will not be able to open new social media accounts from Sept. 1, 2026. The process of closing existing accounts is planned to be completed by Jan. 1, 2027.
Scope of the regulation
The ban is expected to cover TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and X, as well as Reddit and social networking features integrated into gaming services. Educational and scientific reference resources are excluded.
Rather than listing the platforms covered individually, the law refers to the general definition in Article 6 of a 2004 law. As a result, how hybrid services that incorporate social features into other products will be classified remains an open area of debate.
France also plans to expand the ban on mobile phones currently applied in primary and middle schools to include high schools beginning with the 2026-2027 academic year. In a 2024 survey, 73 percent of French people supported banning social media for those under 15.
Age verification provisions removed from the text
The initial draft submitted by lawmaker Laure Miller in November 2025 required platforms to use age-verification methods consistent with technical guidelines set by the regulator Arcom. The draft also included fines of up to 3 percent of platforms’ global revenue for noncompliance and called for platforms deemed harmful to children to be placed on a list.
The previous draft also planned to block all users under 18 from accessing platforms between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m. In its reasoned opinion dated July 6, the European Commission did not directly object to the age limit of 15 or the age-verification obligation. Its criticism focused on the overlap between the national oversight system and the coordinated supervisory framework under the Digital Services Act.
Following the legislative process, the platform-list system was abandoned and provisions granting Arcom supervisory powers were removed from the text. The law therefore states that people under 15 cannot hold accounts but does not explain how platforms should determine users’ ages or identify and suspend existing accounts.
The fact that most major platforms operating in France are based in other European Union countries also raises the issue of the country-of-origin principle. Minister responsible for Digital Affairs Anne Le Henanff argues that age-verification tools are already available and effective, while enforcement mechanisms under the Digital Services Act will be important to the regulation’s implementation.
Australia’s experience fuels the debate
Before Australia’s social media ban, approximately 86 percent of children used at least one restricted platform. The figure remained above 81 percent three months after implementation; daily use fell from 60 percent to 58 percent, while account ownership declined from 52.4 percent to 42.1 percent.
Half of the children said the platforms had not asked them to verify their age, while 7.4 percent said they used a virtual private network. In Australia, the failure to identify and close a significant proportion of existing accounts, despite the regulator and a maximum fine of 49.5 million Australian dollars, became one of the main issues in the debate over implementation in France.
Europe seeks age limits
Denmark has considered an age limit of 15, Greece a limit of 15 from 2027, Austria a limit of 14, and Spain and Slovenia limits of 16. Efforts in these countries are progressing alongside the results from Australia and the European Commission’s preparations for age-verification infrastructure.
Turkey has also taken a similar step through a regulation approved by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on April 22, 2026, with the sanctions defined from the outset. The extent to which France’s ban can be enforced before the age-verification infrastructure that the European Commission aims to roll out by the end of 2026 becomes operational remains unclear.
