France has moved a step closer to restricting children’s access to social media after a parliamentary reconciliation committee approved a bill to ban users under the age of 15 from accessing designated platforms. President Emmanuel Macron has said he wants the law to take effect before the start of the new school year in early September, making France one of the first countries in Europe to adopt such a measure, after Australia’s landmark legislation. The committee’s approval comes ahead of final parliamentary votes, according to Reuters.
The reconciled text will now be debated in the National Assembly on Tuesday before moving to the Senate. If enacted, the legislation will require social media platforms to deploy age verification systems approved by France’s privacy regulator. Additionally, the country’s Information Technology Minister will draw up a list of platforms covered by the ban. The bill also proposes prohibiting smartphone use in high schools.
Broader push from the EU:  Earlier this month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed that the Commission would present legislation after the summer to restrict children’s access to social media across all 27 member states. She said the debate had shifted from questioning whether social media poses risks to children to determining how best to ensure a safer online experience. The announcement followed the submission of an expert panel’s report recommending a minimum access age of 13 across the EU.
What does the evidence from Australia say? Australia became the first country to ban children under 16 from social media when its legislation came into force in December 2025. However, the country’s first compliance report, released by the eSafety Commissioner in March 2026, found that several major platforms continued to fall short of the law’s expectations. The regulator emphasised that it assesses compliance based on whether platforms have implemented effective, layered safeguards to prevent underage access, rather than on the presence of individual under-16 users.
- Weak age-assurance systems: The report found that some platforms encouraged underage users to repeat age checks, relied heavily on self-declared ages during sign-up, and permitted multiple verification attempts, increasing the likelihood of children bypassing safeguards.
- Poor reporting and enforcement: Parents often faced complex reporting processes for underage accounts, while platforms frequently failed to trigger timely age checks or remove reported accounts.
- Underage harms persist: The regulator reported no discernible decline in complaints involving under-16 users, including cyberbullying and image-based abuse, indicating that children continue to access age-restricted platforms despite the ban.
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