France mandates age checks to ban under-15s from social media
France has become the first European country to mandate universal age verification for social media, setting a new regulatory benchmark that tech firms will likely face across the continent.
France's parliament has approved a law banning social media access for children under 15, to be fully enforced by January 2027. Both the Senate and National Assembly adopted the legislation on Tuesday, making France the first European nation to enact such a blanket block on young users. President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the measure as a hallmark of his final year in office.
The mandate will roll out in two phases. Starting in September, users under 15 will be barred from creating new accounts, and all new registrations will require age verification. By January 2027, this requirement will extend to all existing accounts, meaning every user in France must prove they are over 15 to maintain access to the platforms.
Social media companies will be forced to deploy age-verification tools vetted by the French privacy regulator. Digital Minister Anne Le Hénanff defended the rapid rollout of the legislation, stating ahead of the vote that "age-verification tools already exist". However, the mandate creates a fresh compliance burden for platforms operating in a major European market, raising questions about how the systems will be integrated without disrupting user experience.
Critics have raised serious concerns over privacy and the efficacy of the proposed checks. There are fears that young people will simply bypass the restrictions and that the law was pushed through too quickly to address these structural flaws.
The French law accelerates a continent-wide regulatory shift that threatens to alter how social media companies operate in Europe. In May, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed a "social media delay" for children across the EU, with new legislation expected in the coming months. The UK is moving in parallel, with former Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announcing in June a ban for under-16s set for January 2027.
France is following a path carved by Australia, which banned under-16s in December. Yet the Australian model shows the difficulty of enforcement. In March, the country's eSafety Commission found that seven out of 10 children under 16 who had accounts before the ban still maintained "some access".
Tama Leaver, a professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University, told the BBC the Australian ban has "failed" in its technical aims, though it proved a ban "can be done". He warned that France's universal verification requirement increases privacy risks and could push minors into less-regulated spaces, reducing their news consumption and political empowerment. He added that young people need to be part of this conversation so a ban is "done with them" and not "to them".
