France's under-15 ban failed on the age check, not the age limit

France's Constitutional Council struck down Article 1 of the law barring social media accounts for under-15s, roughly two weeks before platforms were due to stop creating those accounts on 1 September ^[1][2]. The ban lost on two grounds, and the second one is the one that generalises: on age verification, the Council found the legislator had not provided the legal guarantees needed to protect private life ^[3].

The first ground was speech. The Council called the restriction "une atteinte qui n'est pas adaptee, necessaire et proportionnee" - an infringement not suited, necessary or proportionate to the objective pursued - according to Brut ^[4]. Scope was named as a specific problem: the prohibition reached services where "les risques pour la sante et la securite des mineurs (...) ne sont pas etablis", meaning risks to minors' health and safety are not established ^[5]. Article 1 covered TikTok, Snapchat, X, Instagram, the social features of YouTube, messaging apps including WhatsApp and Messenger, and some online games ^[6]. The text names no platform; it applies to anything meeting the social network definition in France's 2004 digital confidence law ^[7]. One article had to justify itself across services with very different records, and the evidence did not stretch that far ^[8].

The privacy finding is more awkward for the government, because Parliament had already removed the verification machinery before final approval on 21 July ^[9][10]. The original text required platforms to submit verification proposals to Arcom for approval by 1 September, and gave Arcom power to impose measures on those that missed the deadline; both went, according to TechTimes ^[11]. A penal code section on parental negligence also went, and the adopted law specifies no penalties ^[12][13]. Verification was left to the platforms subject to CNIL approval, with no method specified, so document checks, facial age estimation or anything else would have qualified ^[14][15]. What arrived at the Council was therefore a duty to know every user's age with no prescribed method, no regulator deadline and no sanction, leaving CNIL sign-off as the only stated safeguard ^[1]. The deletions that made the bill easier to pass removed exactly the material a privacy review would have examined ^[2].

La France Insoumise referred the law in July, according to Generation-NT, arguing that the general and absolute character of the ban made it a disproportionate restriction on expression, and separately that it breached privacy under the 1789 Declaration ^[16][17]. Both grounds appear in the decision ^[18]. LFI also argued the ban treated unlike things alike, since different services carry different risks ^[19].

Schools are untouched. The smartphone ban extending to lycees still starts on 1 September, for procedural reasons: the Council was asked about Article 1 alone ^[20][21]. The education minister argued that provision on attention and concentration, and primary and secondary schools already operated bans ^[22].

Ministers had presented the law as child protection and put it at the centre of digital policy for the school year ^[23]. An Arcom study in July found more than two-thirds of 10 to 14-year-olds supported the ban, according to reporting on the decision ^[24]. French media framed the ruling as a setback for Emmanuel Macron, who backed the measure publicly, with the presidency pushing the September start ^[25].

Watch the enforcement arithmetic in any rewrite. Australia's under-16 ban carries fines up to A$49.5m, and a study six months in found 85% of that age group still using the platforms ^[26]. France was attempting the same thing with no fines in the text, resting on the EU Digital Services Act instead ^[27]. A second attempt has to supply the verification standard the last version deleted, or lose on the same ground twice ^[3].