Macron sends Brussels a rewritten under-15 social media ban after Paris struck the first one down

France put a new social media text on the European Commission's desk on Monday, a month after the Conseil constitutionnel killed the version that was supposed to take effect this school year. President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X that the government had notified "new wording" after what he called rigorous technical work. He wants the same age line, 15, and he wants the rest of the Union to adopt it.

The first French law passed the National Assembly on 21 July by 279 votes to 81. New accounts for under-15s were to stop on 1 September. Existing accounts were to close by 1 January 2027. The Conseil constitutionnel struck the core article on 14 August. It called the ban unsuited, unnecessary and disproportionate. The judges said the law swept in services whose risk to minors had not been shown and that the age-verification scheme was not solid enough. A separate ban on phones in lycées survived.

Monday's draft tries to fix the first objection by naming the features France now treats as harmful. According to officials quoted by Le Figaro, the list runs to about ten items: autoplay video, night-time notification streams, and the ability to message unknown accounts among them. The theory is that a ban tied to specific design choices will pass both French constitutional review and the Commission's test under EU law. The earlier text banned platforms by category. This one bans them by what they do to a 14-year-old at midnight.

Macron has already asked Ursula von der Leyen to go further. In a letter dated 29 August, reported by Reuters, he wrote that it had become essential to harmonise a ban on social media for children under 15 through a new European legislative text. "This protection must also become the norm for all European children," he said on Monday. Von der Leyen is due to address children's use of platforms in a speech in Brussels this week. A panel she convened earlier this year recommended a total ban under 13 and a supervised path from 13 to 18. Macron's line is higher and flatter: no accounts until 15.

The gap between those two numbers is the next fight. A 13-year floor would line up with the age many U.S. platforms already print in their terms. A 15-year floor would force TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube's social features, WhatsApp and Messenger to build a harder gate and to defend it in 27 capitals. Age verification is the part the French court did not accept. Moving the rule to Brussels does not, by itself, invent a method that identifies a 14-year-old without collecting more data on every user.

Macron has made the file a closing project of his second term. He wants a working ban in France before he leaves the Élysée next spring. The first statute missed the start of term by two weeks. The second statute now depends on a Commission notice period and, if he gets the European text he asked for, on a legislative calendar that will outlast him. Platforms have not published a joint response to Monday's notification. They already face the Digital Services Act duties on child safety. A hard age bar is a different instrument. It treats access itself as the harm, then lists the features that justify the cut-off.

France is trying to pass through the window after the door closed. The list of addictive settings is the new handle. Whether it is enough for the Conseil constitutionnel, and whether von der Leyen will carry 15 rather than 13 into her speech, will decide if this is a French rule with a European cover letter or the start of a Union-wide ban.