France's highest constitutional authority has blocked legislation that would have banned children under 15 from accessing social media, ruling that the law disproportionately infringed on freedom of expression and privacy rights. The Constitutional Council issued its decision on Friday, striking down the central article of a bill that French lawmakers had approved in July — a measure that had been championed by President Emmanuel Macron as a flagship reform of his final years in office.

The nine-member council, which reviews whether laws comply with France's constitution, found that Article 1 of the legislation constituted an infringement that was "neither appropriate, necessary, nor proportionate" to the freedom of expression and communication of under-15s. It also raised serious concerns about privacy: because the ban would require all users — including adults — to prove their age before accessing platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube, the council found that the law had failed to specify the conditions and limits under which such proof must be provided. The council further noted that the ban, as written, was broad enough to apply to online services where the risks to children's health and safety had not actually been established, and that the law's exemptions — for educational encyclopaedias and scientific directories — were too limited to remedy this.

The legislation had been referred to the council in late July by left-wing members of parliament. Under the original timetable, the ban was to take effect from 1 September for new accounts, with existing accounts required to comply from January. Responding swiftly to Friday's ruling, Macron asked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to draft a legally robust new version of the bill that addresses the council's objections, with the government pledging to work "as quickly as possible." The Élysée palace said Macron remained determined to see the reform implemented before spring 2027, when France is scheduled to hold a presidential election.

The ruling is a significant setback for efforts to make France the first European country to impose such a ban, though it does not signal the end of the debate. Concerns over the viability of age-verification technology, the ease with which young people can circumvent digital restrictions, and the tension between child protection and civil liberties have all featured prominently in criticism of the law since its inception. Those same tensions are playing out across the continent: in May, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed a EU-wide "social media delay" for children, and the United Kingdom announced in June that it would ban under-16s from social media from January 2027. Australia became the first country in the world to enact such a ban, barring under-16s from major platforms in December — though widespread circumvention has been widely acknowledged. The French government's next move will be closely watched as a test of whether robust child-protection legislation and constitutional rights can be successfully reconciled.