France will ban social media use for children under 15 and prohibit mobile phones in high schools, President Emmanuel Macron announced on Saturday, with the government aiming to have the measures in place before the start of the next school year in September.

“The brains of our children and adolescents are not for sale,” Macron said in a video released by French broadcaster BFMTV. “Their emotions are not for sale or to be manipulated, whether by American platforms or Chinese algorithms.”

Enforcement through age verification

The ban is being led by Laure Miller, a lawmaker from Macron’s Renaissance party, who told French parliamentary television that platforms currently allow users to “enter any date of birth and access the platform” without verification.

“What we want to impose on platforms, by strictly enforcing the European Digital Services Act, is real age verification when you access a social network,” Miller said. “That changes everything, because users will actually have to prove whether they are over or under-15.”

Miller acknowledged there will “always be ways” to circumvent restrictions but argued France should “at least put our foot in the door when it comes to protecting minors online.”

Following Australia’s lead

France joins a growing number of Western countries enacting legislation to safeguard young people from potential harms of social media. Australia implemented a landmark ban in December prohibiting under-16s from having accounts on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and other platforms.

More than 4.7 million social media accounts deemed to be held by under-16s have been deactivated or removed in Australia since the ban, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said last month.

“We know that social harm is being caused, and therefore we have a responsibility as a government to respond to the pleas of parents and respond as well to the campaign of young people saying, just let us be kids,” Albanese told CNN when the ban was implemented.

UK considering similar measures

The British government announced days before Macron’s statement that it is considering a range of measures to keep children safe online, including banning social media use for under-16s.

Stay updated with Monaco Life: sign up for our free newsletter, catch our podcast on Spotify, and follow us across Facebook,  Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tik Tok.

Photo credit: Solen Feyissa, Unsplash