French President Macron wants to speed up the ban on social networks for children under the age of 15 and implement it as early as September. He also supports banning cell phones in schools, responding to concerns about children’s safety.
French President Emmanuel Macron, in his own words, asked the government to speed up the legislative process regarding the ban on the use of social networks for children under 15 years of age. On Saturday, he also announced that he wants the ban to apply from the beginning of the next school year, i.e. from September. TASR informs about it according to the report of the AFP agency.
- Macron calls for a ban on social networks for children under 15.
- He wants the ban to apply from September of the next school year.
- The bill on the ban will be presented by French MPs on Monday.
- France also supports the ban on cell phones in schools for students.
- Poland and the European Parliament are preparing similar restrictions.
“I have asked the government to activate an accelerated procedure so that it can happen as quickly as possible,” Macron said in a video broadcast by BFM television.
Ban on mobile phones in schools
French MPs will present a proposal for this ban in parliament on Monday.
In addition to this ban, the President also supports the ban on the use of mobile phones by students in schools. “The brains of our children and adolescents are not for sale or manipulation, either by American platforms or Chinese algorithms,” he said.
European initiatives
Macron said back in June that he wanted to push for a ban on social networks for children under 15 at the European Union level. He announced this after the deadly attack of a 14-year-old student at a school in the city of Nogent in the east of France.
In December, Australia became the first country in the world to ban people under the age of 16 from using social networks such as Instagram, TikTok or the YouTube platform. According to the regulation, major platforms must remove the accounts of all users under a certain age.
Similar plans in Poland
Poland also wants to legislate the use of social networks. The Parliamentary Club of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) wants to complete the proposal by the end of February and present it as a parliamentary initiative.
Members of the European Parliament also called for the adoption of ambitious measures to protect minors on the Internet in November of last year, including the introduction of a uniform minimum age limit of 16 years for access to social networks.
