The French National Assembly approved this Monday a bill whose objective is, as happened a few months ago in of those under 15 years of age and also ban the use of mobile phones in French schools. The text, which has the support of the Government and President Emmanuel Macron himself, will now go to the Senate so that it can be put into practice starting in September, coinciding with the start of the next school year.
The French lower house has supported the initiative by 116 votes in favor and 23 againstafter a debate that lasted until well after midnight and that the Executive he leads has promoted the emergency procedure. The French Government places the measure at the center of a strategy with which to protect the mental health of children and adolescents, in addition to limiting those that may arise from the intensive use of digital platforms.
In the parliamentary debate, deputy Laure Miller, one of the project’s promoters, defended the need for the ban “because you cannot let a child have to manage something addictive on their own.” Miller has pointed out how algorithms play a fundamental role, leading minors to content linked to suicidal tendencies and self-mutilation, with “It promised to encourage creativity and joy and the opposite has happened,” he stated before highlighting that scientific studies have already shown that younger people “sleep less, move less, read less and compare themselves more.”
The French project, which places France one step away from being the , does not emerge from nowhere. Since 2023, the neighboring country has obliged platforms to verify the age of their users and only allows access to minors under 15 years of age if they have parental authorization. Legislators and experts consider, however, that this measure is insufficient in the face of the risks posed by exposure to inappropriate content, social pressure, addiction to screens or cyberbullying. Hence, a group of deputies has promoted a more ambitious proposal, focused on setting the “digital majority” at 15 years old and limiting the use of devices in schools.
The keys to the French prohibition
The text that has been approved in France introduces some nuances with respect to the first version that entered the National Assembly. For example, certain platforms are excluded, such as online encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, educational or scientific repositories and free software services. The core of the rule, however, remains: companies They will have to implement age verification mechanisms and automatically block accounts that do not meet the requirementunder the threat of sanctions. The Executive will define by decree which networks are considered “dangerous” for minors, based on reports from the Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (ARCOM).
The extension of the veto on the use of mobile phones in French institutes has also focused part of the debate in the National Assembly. The Minister of Education of France, Edward Geffrayrecalled that the ban approved in 2018 for preschool, primary and secondary school courses has already had “positive effects, both on the school environment and on learning.” In his opinion, this new norm attempts to respond to a worrying reality: a significant part of young people “spend more time in front of screens each week than during class hours.”
Not all groups share that diagnosis. Rebellious France has tried to stop the processing of the text through a rejection motion, although the National Assembly has overturned it before the final vote. The deputy Louis Boyard has questioned the difficulty of actually applying the ban and has given the Australian case as an example: “Do you know how easy it is to skip it? It is enough for someone who looks like they are over 18 years old to volunteer to replace the minor and do the facial recognition” required in Australia.
Macron has made this initiative one of the flags of a mandate that is marked by the lack of a parliamentary majority and with which he seeks a great national pact to accelerate the approval of a norm that is supported by health reports that warn of the psychological damage associated with the intensive use of social networks. “The brains of our children and our adolescents are not for sale. The emotions of our minors are not sold or manipulated”the French president stated on social networks.
A report recently published by the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Labor Safety (ANSES) suggests that platforms such as TikTok, Snapchat o Instagram They seriously harm the mental health of adolescents by encouraging constant comparison, exposing themselves to violent content, suffering from sleep disturbances, and being victims of cyberbullying situations.
The text must also comply with the European regulation on digital services so that, as happened to a similar initiative in 2023 that sought to set the digital majority at 15 years, it avoids being blocked and is not applied due to conflicts with EU regulations.
France thus follows the path opened by Australia, which in December passed a pioneering law to prohibit access to social networks for minors under 16 years of age. In Spain, it is studying raising the minimum age to register on these platforms to 16 years, although through a different approach, based on data protection legislation. Three different regulatory models for the same problem that, if Parliament completes the process, will place France at the forefront of the European debate.
