France's top court strikes down under-15 social media ban on free-speech grounds

France’s Constitutional Council has struck down a law that would have barred anyone under 15 from using social media, ruling that a blanket prohibition disproportionately infringes on freedom of expression and communication. The court found the measure too broad: it swept in every minor and every platform without weighing individual circumstances or the specific risks posed by particular services. Judges also flagged privacy problems, an implicit shot at the age-verification systems any such ban would require. The legislation, which also restricted mobile phone use in high schools, would have made France the first EU member state to impose an outright age-gate on social platforms.

The decision is a setback rather than a defeat for the policy. President Macron said he remains committed to seeing a ban in force by spring and has directed Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to draft a legally durable version that satisfies both the Council’s objections and the EU’s legal framework. That reframes the fight as a drafting problem — how to protect minors without a categorical block that courts will reject and without age-checks that create their own surveillance and data-collection risks.

The ruling matters beyond France because youth social-media restrictions are advancing across multiple jurisdictions, and mandatory age verification is the common technical chokepoint. A constitutional court explicitly tying a ban’s failure to both free expression and privacy sets a reference point other European governments and platforms will have to reckon with as similar measures move forward.