French President Emmanuel Macron has raised the alarm over the impact of social media on children and adolescents, describing its use before the age of 15 as a serious risk to public health and the safety of minors.
In a strong statement on social media and in a video published by BFM-TV, Macron warned that France is moving toward banning social media platforms for children under this age.
According to Macron, the average time an adolescent spends in front of screens reaches 4 hours and 20 minutes per day a figure he described as “crazy,” stressing that in most cases the content is not supervised by parents. He warned that once children are allowed to use social media, there is no guarantee they will not be exposed to extremely violent scenes or harmful content.
“We cannot delegate this responsibility and often this pressure solely to parents, asking them to decide whether, at the age of 12, it is a good or bad idea to practically hand over a child’s brain to platforms,” Macron said.
The French president described restricting social media access for children under 15 as an essential measure for their protection, emphasizing that this is not only an education issue, but one of mental and emotional health for future generations.
In this context, Macron announced that he has asked his government to use an accelerated legislative procedure, aiming for the bill to be approved by Parliament and the Senate by the start of the next school year, in September.
“The brains of our children and adolescents are not for sale. Their emotions are not for sale, nor are they to be manipulated — neither by American platforms nor by Chinese algorithms,” he stated.
