France’s parliament gave final approval on July 21, 2026 to a bill barring children under 15 from social media platforms, making France the first European Union member state to pass a blanket ban of its kind. The National Assembly cleared the measure by 279 votes to 81, with both chambers voting in favour during an accelerated legislative procedure, according to reporting by AFP and the Associated Press.
The prohibition will roll out in two stages. From September 1, 2026, users under 15 will be blocked from creating new accounts on covered platforms, and from January 1, 2027, the rule extends to existing accounts, which must be closed. “If someone is under 15, the account will be closed,” Digital Minister Anne Le Hénanff said after the vote, adding that users’ personal data would be protected. The law exempts online encyclopedias, educational and scientific directories, free software development or sharing platforms and open-source digital educational projects. President Emmanuel Macron, who championed the ban as a signature measure of his final term, called the vote “a major step forward” and said France was “leading the way in Europe” on child protection. More than 60 deputies referred the bill to France’s Constitutional Council on July 23, delaying promulgation while the court considers whether the blanket restriction is constitutional.
The vote lands in the middle of a global push to keep younger users off social platforms. Australia’s under-16 ban took effect across nine named platforms on December 10, 2025, carrying civil penalties of up to 54.6 million Australian dollars (at current index). The United Kingdom announced in June 2026 that it will bar users under 16 from platforms including TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, with a spring 2027 target. Spain, Denmark and Greece have signalled similar plans, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has called for EU-wide restrictions on minors’ access, with a Commission proposal expected in the months ahead.
What France passed states the outcome but says little about the mechanism. Reporting on the final text, including analysis by Tech Times, notes that lawmakers stripped out clauses that would have required platforms to build age-verification systems approved by a French regulator, leaving the choice of verification method to platforms, subject to the privacy regulator’s approval and the EU’s Digital Services Act. That gap matters because a ban only works if platforms can reliably tell a 14-year-old from a 15-year-old at sign-up.
Suggested Read: France Targets Under-15 Social Media Use With Mandatory Age Verification For 2026
A BMJ study published in June 2026, based on surveys conducted before and three months after implementation, found little substantive change in adolescent use: about 86% of under-16 participants still accessed at least one restricted platform, sometimes through fake, shared or alternative accounts or private browsing. The verification question also carries a privacy cost, as critics warned during debate that document-based age checks could push every French adult to hand a passport or national ID to a private company, concentrating sensitive data in the kind of vendor systems that have been breached before.
Platforms operating in France now need age assurance that is accurate enough to satisfy regulators and private enough to avoid creating a new data-breach target. That points toward verification that can estimate age without hoarding identity documents. Shufti’s age verification combines facial biometric age estimation with document and identity checks across 240+ countries and territories, and its age assurance technology is KJM-approved in Germany, one of Europe’s stricter benchmarks. Companies preparing for the September deadline can explore Shufti’s age verification solution or request a demo to assess their options.
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