France’s Constitutional Council has blocked a major part of legislation intended to prevent children under 15 from accessing social media, finding that the restrictions interfered disproportionately with freedom of expression and communication. The decision disrupts a prominent initiative backed by President Emmanuel Macron and sends the government back to the drawing board on how it can introduce stronger age restrictions without violating constitutional protections.
The legislation was approved in July and envisioned a phased introduction of the restrictions. Beginning in September, children younger than 15 would have been prevented from creating new accounts on covered social media services. The requirements were then expected to expand in January 2027 to accounts that already existed.
Enforcing such a system would have required platforms to determine whether users were old enough to access their services. That became one of the central problems identified by the Constitutional Council. Because a platform cannot know whether someone is under 15 without checking their age, the measure would effectively have required adults as well as children to demonstrate that they met the age requirement.
The Council concluded that Article 1 of the legislation imposed an excessive restriction on the ability of minors to communicate and express themselves. Although protecting children online can justify government intervention, the judges determined that the mechanism chosen by lawmakers was not sufficiently appropriate, necessary and proportionate to that objective.
Privacy was another important issue. The Council found that lawmakers had not established adequate legal safeguards governing the age-verification process. Requiring an entire population of social media users to demonstrate their age raises questions about what information platforms or verification providers would collect and how that information would be handled.
The ruling does not mean France has abandoned its attempt to impose stronger protections for children using social networks. Macron’s office responded by indicating that the government intends to prepare revised legislation as quickly as possible. The Élysée wants a new version capable of meeting the constitutional requirements while retaining the broader objective of limiting younger children’s access to social media.
The decision therefore creates a significant legal obstacle rather than necessarily ending the policy. Any replacement proposal will have to address the weaknesses identified by the Constitutional Council, particularly the proportionality of restricting children’s access and the privacy protections surrounding age verification.
France’s debate is also taking place as governments elsewhere experiment with different approaches to children’s access to social media. Australia introduced restrictions covering users under 16 in December 2025, requiring age-restricted platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent them from holding accounts. Australian eSafety Commissioner’s explanation of the restrictions
France’s proposed system, however, must satisfy the country’s own constitutional framework as well as the broader European legal environment. The latest ruling demonstrates that an objective of protecting children does not automatically justify every method proposed to achieve it.
Macron’s government now faces the challenge of developing a narrower approach that can survive constitutional scrutiny. The original plan would have made age verification central to restricting social media access for under-15s, but the Constitutional Council determined that lawmakers had not provided sufficient safeguards for such a broad system.
As a result, the planned September introduction and subsequent expansion of the restrictions cannot proceed in their original form. The government has indicated that it intends to return with another proposal, meaning France’s attempt to establish a nationwide minimum age for social media is likely to continue, but under a substantially revised legal framework.