France’s under-15 social media ban struck down two weeks before it starts
The Conseil constitutionnel censured Article 1 of the law on 14 August, finding the France social media ban for under-15s disproportionate. The school smartphone ban survives, as the Council was only asked to rule on that specific article.
August 14, 2026 – 2:03 pm
Credit: Amine ATTOUT
The decision comes about two weeks before the ban was set to begin, according to Bloomberg. Platforms were scheduled to stop creating accounts for under-15s from 1 September.
Parliament gave the law final approval on 21 July, as covered in our final vote news piece at the time.
What the Council Ruled
The Council struck down the ban based on freedom of expression grounds, stating that the restriction was "une atteinte qui n’est pas adaptée, nécessaire et proportionnée". It also raised concerns about the scope of the ban, which encompassed services where "les risques pour la santé et la sécurité des mineurs (…) ne sont pas établis", meaning risks to minors’ health and safety were not established.
A second ground for the ruling was privacy. The Council found that the legislator had not provided sufficient legal guarantees to protect private life regarding age verification.
What the Law Would Have Done
Article 1 covered a wide list of services, including:
- TikTok
- Snapchat
- X (formerly Twitter)
- Social features of YouTube
- Messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger
- Certain online games
The law’s scope was what enabled the Council’s ruling, as it had to justify a single article across various platforms with differing records.
The text did not name specific platforms but applied to services defined as social networks under France’s 2004 digital confidence law.
The timetable included two key dates: new accounts were to stop on 1 September, with a four-month transition period for existing accounts running until 1 January 2027.
Exemptions covered online encyclopedias, educational directories, and open-source educational software.
The Surviving Provision
Schools are unaffected by the ruling. The smartphone ban extending to lycées (secondary schools) will still start on 1 September.
This is a procedural matter; the Council only ruled on Article 1, so did not assess the rest of the law.
The education minister argued for this provision based on maintaining students’ attention and concentration. Primary and secondary schools already had bans in place, and the law extends them to sixth-form level.
Who Brought the Challenge
La France Insoumise (LFI) referred the law to the Conseil constitutionnel in July, according to Generation-NT. The party raised two constitutional concerns:
- Freedom of expression and communication: LFI argued that the absolute and general nature of the ban made it a disproportionate restriction.
- Privacy under the 1789 Declaration (not explicitly detailed in the provided text).
LFI also maintained that the ban treated similar things unequally, as social platforms serve various purposes – socialization, information access, civic engagement – and carry different risks.
Earlier Enforcement Changes
The law reaching the Conseil constitutionnel was already weaker than proposed. Parliament removed the age-verification mandate before the final vote, reported TechTimes.