EU Blocks French Social Media Ban for Minors, Citing Conflict With Digital Rules

The European Commission has ruled that France's proposed ban on social media access for children is incompatible with European Union law in its current form, effectively halting the measure. The Commission said in a formal opinion that while it fully supports the goal of better protecting minors online, the rules proposed by Paris conflict with the EU-wide Digital Services Act (DSA) — a landmark regulation governing online platforms across all member states — and would grant French authorities excessively broad powers that fall outside what individual countries are permitted to exercise under the bloc's legal framework. The DSA, which came into full force in 2024, is designed to create a single set of rules for digital platforms across the EU, limiting the ability of individual member states to impose separate national regulations in the same area. The Commission is now considering whether a similar child protection measure could be introduced at the EU level, which would apply uniformly across all 27 member states.