France to impose social media ban for under-15s after parliament's approval

France is set to impose a social media ban for under-15s after a joint French parliamentary reconciliation committee agreed on a bill prohibiting children from using social media platforms.

The legislation, backed by President Emmanuel Macron, aims to roll out before the start of the school year in September which would also extends a ban on mobile phone usage in high schools.

Macron has said he wants the ban to be in force by the start of the school year in early September.

Under the new bill France would follow Australia, which enacted the world's first ban for under-16s on platforms including Meta Platforms' Facebook, Snap's Snapchat, Bytedance's TikTok and Alphabet's YouTube in December.

As reported by Reuters, the bill was modified to align with the EU Digital Services Act (DSA).

While France sets the national age threshold, European authorities will oversee platform compliance and age-verification mechanisms.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has recently supported limiting children's access to social media in the 27-country bloc.

The reconciled text will be discussed on Tuesday in the Lower House and later in the Senate and the information Technology minister will establish a list of the social networks banned for children and teenagers younger than 15 years old.

Notably, under the new legislation, social media platforms will have to set up systems of age verification approved by the French privacy regulator.