French deputies and senators agreed on a reconciled text late Monday that will prohibit access to social media platforms for anyone under 15, setting the stage for a final parliamentary vote on Tuesday. The bill, championed by President Emmanuel Macron as one of the signature measures of his final term, also bans the use of smartphones in lycées. The government aims to enforce the social media restriction from September, when students return to classrooms, making France the first European Union member state to establish what Digital Minister Anne Le Hénanff called a “digital majority” for minors.

The compromise resolved a dispute over the scope of the ban. The National Assembly had pushed for a blanket prohibition on all online social networking services, while the Senate favoured a narrower blacklist of specific platforms. The joint committee ultimately adopted the Assembly’s broader formulation, though it carved out exceptions for online encyclopaedias, educational and scientific directories, and open-source software development platforms. The text tasks the information technology minister with issuing a list of banned services after consulting the audiovisual and digital regulator, and requires platforms to deploy age-verification systems approved by the French privacy authority.

Viewed from Brussels, the legislative process was shaped by the need to align with the EU’s Digital Services Act. The European Commission had earlier signalled that the Senate’s initial draft risked overlapping with the bloc’s regulatory framework and asked Paris to amend it. The final version addresses that concern by imposing a general prohibition while leaving it to EU authorities to ensure platforms comply with the age restriction. The Commission itself announced last week that it is considering a “progressive and gradual” access model for minors across the 27-nation bloc, a move that some lawmakers in Paris interpret as Brussels preparing to take the lead on the issue in the longer term.

France’s initiative forms part of a broader international trend. Australia became the first country to ban social media for under-16s in December, though early assessments suggest enforcement has proved difficult. The United Kingdom has passed a similar measure for under-16s but it will not enter into force until early 2027. In France, the ban will be rolled out in two stages: from 1 September 2026, minors under 15 will be unable to create new accounts, and by 1 January 2027 existing accounts held by under-15s must be closed. The practical challenge of robust age verification remains unresolved, with officials pointing to possible use of existing public identity platforms or a new European age-verification application presented by the Commission in April.

The bill is scheduled for a definitive vote in both the National Assembly and the Senate on Tuesday. Given the cross-party consensus and the government’s determination to implement the measure before the summer recess, passage is widely expected. Once adopted, attention will shift to the technical and legal mechanisms required to enforce the ban, as well as to how the European Commission’s own emerging framework will interact with national legislation in the months ahead.