Gabriel Attal calls for a referendum on banning social media for under-15s

The Renaissance presidential candidate, Gabriel Attal, called on Saturday President Emmanuel Macron to submit to a referendum the ban on social networks for those under 15, after the censorship by the Constitutional Council of the law adopted in Parliament.

As soon as this censorship was announced, the Head of State asked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu on Friday to propose a new wording of the text, “legally robust”.

“That this new system, which will obviously have to take into account the observations of the Constitutional Council, be submitted directly to the French people, by referendum,” asks Gabriel Attal in an article written for La Tribune on Sunday.

“It has been twenty-one years since the French were directly consulted. For so many French people, including myself, this is incomprehensible. There are few such fair opportunities to give them a voice again,” adds the former Prime Minister.

Gabriel Attal, who was heavily involved in the parliamentary work leading to the law on social networks, also believes that resorting to a referendum would respond to the need to move quickly.

“A race against time has started. If we started from scratch with a new legislative procedure, it would probably take up to two years for the ban to come into force. That’s 1.5 million children that we would leave, every day, for 1 hour 47 minutes on average, in the clutches of algorithms,” says Gabriel Attal.

“Thanks to the referendum, we could act without delay,” he insists.