Faced with the failure of his national legislative initiative, which was struck down this summer by the Constitutional Council for disproportionately infringing on freedom of expression, Emmanuel Macron is now attempting to impose his vision at the EU level. In a letter addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, the French head of state is advocating for European harmonization to ban access to social media platforms for minors under 15. This strategy aims to circumvent French legal hurdles by establishing a uniform "digital age of consent" across the entire European territory.
Beyond a simple access ban, this legislative offensive seeks to impose strict constraints on platform algorithms. The President wants Brussels to legislate on limiting addictive features and to establish mandatory default security standards, such as safeguards on screen time. While the stated intention is to protect youth, the project faces complex technical and ethical implementation challenges, particularly regarding age verification mechanisms.
The main point of friction lies in the tension between protecting minors and protecting privacy. Implementing robust identity verification systems inevitably requires massive collection of personal data, a sensitive issue that has galvanized opposition from civil liberties advocates. Although the European Commission is exploring pathways for age-gated access, the French position remains significantly more restrictive, as it seeks to rally a coalition of member states around its 15-year threshold.
For the tech sector and Web3 players, these discussions carry major underlying implications. Any generalization of online identification could accelerate the deployment of a European digital identity, profoundly altering the terms of access to decentralized services and platforms. While the French government is simultaneously preparing a new national legislative text with a stronger legal foundation for implementation before 2027, the outcome of these negotiations in Brussels will define the future regulatory framework for how minors interact with the European digital ecosystem.