Chase away the natural, it comes back at a gallop. Adopted on July 21 by Parliament, the law prohibiting access to social networks for those under 15 was to come into force on September 1. She won't go any further. Seized by more than sixty deputies from La France insoumise on July 23, the Constitutional Council censored article 1 of the text this Friday, August 14, ruling that it poses a disproportionate attack on freedom of expression and communication. The decision falls two weeks before the start of the school year. And it resets a legislative project started last fall.
Why the Sages are challenging the law on social networks
In its decision no. 2026-911 DC, made public this Friday, the Constitutional Council details a reasoning in several stages. First, the ban targeted online services, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook in the lead, without distinguishing those where a real risk to the health or safety of minors is established from those where it is not. Then, the text simply ignored the age, family situation or degree of maturity of the minor concerned: a 14 and a half year old teenager fell under the same ax as a 10 year old child. No provision, either, allowed parents to lift the ban, limit its scope or authorize access to certain services in the interest of their child.
There remains one last point, undoubtedly the most embarrassing for the legislator. By imposing generalized age verification, the law effectively required any user, minor or not, to prove their age to access certain services. An attack on respect for private life that the Council did not let pass.
What censorship changes, and what it doesn’t change, for the start of the school year
Concretely, article 1 falls. With it disappears the obligation for platforms to block access to those under 15 from September. French teenagers will therefore continue to register on TikTok or Snapchat exactly as before, with no restrictive age verification system on the horizon. The surprise remains limited: Le Journal du Coin was already pointing out the flaws in the text even before its final adoption, a prognosis which is confirmed almost decision for decision.
Of course, censorship does not mean abandoning the subject. The European regulation on digital services already imposes obligations on platforms to protect minors, even without specific French text. Still. The rest of the law, in particular the digital curfew planned for 15-18 year olds, is not affected by this censorship: only article 1, the one which purely and simply prohibited access to those under 15, falls.
A year of parliamentary battle for a simple marker
However, the text was not born from the last rain. Tabled in the Assembly in November 2025, it had already gone through a Senate retouching its initial version to limit surveillance deemed too total, before final adoption on July 21. Its own rapporteurs themselves described it as a simple political marker, with a deliberately limited normative scope: no designated supervisory authority, no specified age verification method, no concrete guarantee on the data collected. The Council of State, consulted beforehand, had also called for better supervision of the system, without Parliament really following its recommendations before the final vote.
