French lawmakers were expected to approve a bill banning social media access for children under 15 on Tuesday, July 21, 2026, after a parliamentary reconciliation committee reached agreement the day before. The legislation, which Le Monde reported would be the first such ban in the European Union, cleared both houses of the French parliament following months of back-and-forth. The committee's July 20 accord resolved differences between the upper and lower chambers, finalizing a text first introduced at the National Assembly on November 18, 2025, as a bill to protect minors from social media risks.

The National Assembly initially approved the under-15 ban on January 26, 2026. The adopted text states that access to social networking services is prohibited for minors under fifteen. The bill goes beyond blocking new sign-ups: it requires platforms to suspend existing accounts belonging to users who are under 15. A foundation report on the bill also includes additional prevention measures.

The Senate took up its version on March 25, 2026. The Senate rapport noted that some social network services would remain accessible to 15-year-olds under certain conditions. The Conseil d'État — France's highest administrative court — issued an opinion on January 12, 2026, confirming the objective of protecting minors through the access ban. The Conseil d'État also proposed a blacklist mechanism for social networks that would be off-limits to under-15s. On July 8, 2026, the French Senate announced that the European Commission had given its approval (or "feu vert") for this blacklist mechanism. The Senate planned to publish the list of banned networks by ministerial order on the advice of a designated authority.

The bill also mandates that promotional material for social networks and online platforms carry a warning describing them as "dangerous products for" minors. The 2026 ban is France's second attempt at legislation barring children under 15 from social media. Separately, France plans to prohibit mobile phones in high schools starting in September 2026, part of a broader regulatory push on youth technology access.

The broader context here involves a European regulatory environment where member states are increasingly testing how far they can push platform liability and age-gating rules. The European Commission's approval of the blacklist mechanism signals that the French approach has cleared internal market scrutiny, at least at the notification stage.

For platform operators, the enforcement architecture matters as much as the age threshold itself. The requirement to suspend existing accounts, rather than merely preventing new ones, imposes an affirmative duty to identify and remove users already on the service. That obligation raises practical questions about age verification methods, data retention under GDPR (the EU's privacy law), and the technical feasibility of compliance for platforms with large existing user bases in France. The blacklist mechanism adds a second layer of risk: inclusion on a ministerial list carries reputational and access consequences that extend beyond individual user enforcement.

France's positioning as first-mover within the EU means other member states will watch both the legal challenges and implementation friction closely. The advertising warnings framing social media as "dangerous products for" minors introduce a public-health framing that could shape future regulatory language across the bloc.