Lawmakers in France have passed a bill seeking to ban the use of social media by children under 15, it has been reported.
Lawmakers voted 116 to 23 in favour of the bill on January 17. The bill will now be passed to the Senate before a final vote in the lower house. French President Emmanuel Macron called the vote a “major step” in protecting French children and teenagers in a post on X.
“The emotions of our children and teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, either by American platforms or Chinese algorithms,” Macron said in a video broadcast on Saturday. Authorities want the measures to be enforced from the start of the 2026 school year for new accounts.
France’s public health watchdog ANSES said this month that social media such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram had several detrimental effects on adolescents, particularly girls, though it was not the sole reason for their declining mental health, The Guardian reported. The legislation stipulates that “access to an online social networking service provided by an online platform is prohibited for minors under the age of 15”.
