France intends to follow Australia and ban social media platforms for children from the start of the 2026 academic year.
A draft bill preventing under-15s from using social media will be submitted for legal checks and is expected to be debated in parliament early in the new year.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has made it clear in recent weeks that he wants France to swiftly follow Australia’s world-first ban on social media platforms for under-16s, which came into force in December. It includes Facebook, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube.
Le Monde and France Info reported on Wednesday that a draft bill was now complete and contained two measures: a ban on social media for under-15s and a ban on mobile phones in high schools, where 15- to 18-year-olds study. Phones have already been banned in primary and middle schools.
The bill will be submitted to France’s Conseil d’État for legal review in the coming days. Education unions will also look at the proposed high-school ban on phones.
The government wants the social media ban to come into force from September 2026.
Le Monde reported the text of the draft bill cited “the risks of excessive screen use by teenagers”, including the dangers of being exposed to inappropriate social media content, online bullying, and altered sleep patterns. The bill states the need to “protect future generations” from dangers that threaten their ability to thrive and live together in a society with shared values.
Earlier this month, Macron confirmed at a public debate in Saint Malo that he wanted a social media ban for young teenagers. He said there was “consensus being shaped” on the issue after Australia introduced its ban. “The more screen time there is, the more school achievement drops … the more screen time there is, the more mental health problems go up,” he said.
He used the analogy of a teenager getting into a Formula One racing car before they had learned to drive. “If a child is in a Formula One car and they turn on the engine, I don’t want them to win the race, I just want them to get out of the car. I want them to learn the highway code first, and to ensure the car works, and to teach them to drive in a different car.”
Several other countries are considering social media bans for under-15s after Australia’s ban including Denmark, whose government hopes to introduce a ban in 2026, and Norway. Malaysia is also planning a social media ban for under-16s from 2026. In the UK, the Labour government has not ruled out a ban, saying “nothing is off the table” but any ban must be “based on robust evidence”.
Anne Le Hénanff, the French minister in charge of digital development and artificial intelligence, told Le Parisien this month that the social media ban for under-15s was a government priority, and that the bill would be “short and compatible with European law”, namely the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) – regulation intended to combat hateful speech, misinformation and disinformation.
The social media ban is part of Macron’s attempt to shape his legacy as he enters his difficult final year as president with a divided parliament.
On 23 December, last-minute legislation was passed to keep the government in business into January after parliament failed to agree a full budget for 2026. Attempts to agree a budget will resume next month.
A French parliamentary inquiry into TikTok’s psychological effects concluded in September that the platform was like a “slow poison” to children. The co-head of the inquiry, the centrist lawmaker Laure Miller, told France Info that TikTok was an “ocean of harmful content” that was very visible to children through algorithms that kept them in a bubble. TikTok responded that it was being unfairly scapegoated for “industry-wide and societal challenges”.
The French parliament report recommended more broadly that children under 15 in France should be banned entirely from using social media, and those between 15 and 18 should face a night-time “digital curfew”, meaning social media would be made unavailable to them between 10pm and 8am.
The inquiry was set up after a 2024 French lawsuit against TikTok by seven families who accused it of exposing their children to content that was pushing them towards ending their lives.