France’s National Assembly has approved a bill that would ban access to social media for children under the age of 15, a measure strongly supported by President Emmanuel Macron.
Lawmakers in the lower house voted 116 to 23 on Monday to approve the bill’s main provisions. The legislation will now be sent to the upper house, the Senate, for further debate and approval.
If passed, the law would prevent young teenagers from using platforms such as Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok.
The proposal forms part of a wider international effort to restrict children’s use of social networks, amid growing evidence of their harmful effects on mental health. Australia passed similar legislation late last year.
Following the bill’s approval in an overnight session from Monday into Tuesday, Macron described the move as a “major step”.
In a message posted on social media, he urged the government to move quickly, calling for action “so that this ban takes effect as early as next school year”. France’s new academic year begins on 1 September.
“Our children’s brains are not for sale,” he wrote.
Laure Miller, the MP who introduced the bill, told Le Monde: “With this law we will set down a clear limit in society.”
“We are saying something very simple: social networks are not harmless,” she added.
“These networks promised to bring people together. They pulled them apart. They promised to inform. They saturated us with information. They promised to entertain. They shut people away.”
Last month, Macron said: “We cannot leave the mental and emotional health of our children in the hands of people whose sole purpose is to make money out of them.”
Under the proposed legislation, the state media regulator would be tasked with drawing up a list of social media platforms deemed harmful, which would be banned outright for under-15s.
A second list of platforms considered less harmful would remain accessible, but only with explicit parental consent.
Another provision would prohibit the use of mobile phones in senior secondary schools, known as lycées. Mobile phone bans are already in place in primary and middle schools.
If the bill becomes law, France will still need to determine how age verification will be enforced. A system already exists requiring users over the age of 18 to prove their age when accessing online pornography.
Several other European countries, including Denmark, Greece, Spain and Ireland, are also considering similar measures inspired by Australia’s approach. Earlier this month, the UK government launched a consultation on banning social media for under-16s.
The proposed French law is based on a draft text prepared late last year by Miller, who chaired a parliamentary inquiry into the psychological effects of TikTok and other social networks.
Separately, the government was instructed to prepare its own legislation after Macron made the issue a central focus of his final year in office.
The president has been largely sidelined in domestic politics since the 2024 Assembly elections he called resulted in a hung parliament.
The social media ban has provided one of the few opportunities for Macron to regain public support.
At one stage, the initiative risked being undermined by tensions between Macron and his former prime minister Gabriel Attal, whose party Miller belongs to. However, the government ultimately appears to have rallied behind the Miller bill.
The legislation is expected to pass the Senate within the next month. Macron said he had asked the government of Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to use a fast-track procedure to ensure the law is enacted by September.
Without fast-tracking — which allows for a single reading instead of two in each parliamentary chamber — the bill would be unlikely to progress due to a legislative backlog linked to difficulties in passing a budget.
The text has already been revised to address concerns raised by the Council of State, which reviews draft laws for compliance with French and European legislation.
A similar law passed in 2023 proposing a social media ban for young teenagers was later ruled inoperable after courts found it violated European law.
