Adult content
In effect
- Bill / statute
- SREN Law (2024) + ARCOM standard
- Status
- Active law in effect
- Effective
- Jan 11, 2025
- Intrusiveness
- Severe -- Criminal penalties, VPN targeting, or repeated re-checks with long data retention.
The SREN Law (May 2024) and ARCOM's technical standard require pornographic sites reachable from France to verify users' ages every session, with at least one "double-anonymity" method. In force since Jan 11, 2025 (card-only checks barred after April 11, 2025). ARCOM issued formal notices in Aug 2025; penalties reach EUR 150,000 or 2% of turnover, and ARCOM can order ISP blocking within 48 hours (upheld by the Conseil d'Etat). A CJEU case over EU-established providers is pending, and President Macron is pushing a separate under-15 social-media ban.
Timeline
- May 21, 2024SREN law enacted
- Jan 11, 2025In effect
- Jan 11, 2025Mandatory age verification for adult sites in force
- Aug 1, 2025ARCOM issues formal notices to non-compliant sites
Source: arcom.fr
Social media
Court hold
- Bill / statute
- Under-15 social-media ban (2026)
- Status
- Enacted, blocked by court
- Effective
- ~Sep 2026 (approx.)
- Intrusiveness
- High -- Broad reach: low or no content threshold, device/OS-level, or bundled with other verification.
STRUCK DOWN BY THE CONSEIL CONSTITUTIONNEL ON AUG 14, 2026 -- the first time a court has blocked one of the new wave of under-age social-media bans. Parliament had passed it overwhelmingly (the Senate 243-2 with 100 abstentions on Jul 21, 2026), which would have made France the first EU member with a blanket ban; it also barred mobile phones in high schools. THE COUNCIL GAVE TWO GROUNDS AND THE SECOND IS THE ONE THAT TRAVELS. First, the provisions disproportionately infringe freedom of expression and communication, and were too broad to weigh the situation of an individual minor or the specific risks of a particular platform. Second, and more consequential for every age-verification law on this map: the Council held that barring under-15s inherently requires EVERY PERSON, INCLUDING EVERY ADULT, to prove their age before access, and that the law provided no safeguards for the right to respect for private life. A court has now held that age-gating minors necessarily burdens adults -- the anonymity objection, upheld. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT: Macron asked Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to rewrite the bill quickly, targeting spring 2027. NOT ESTABLISHED: whether a redrafted version survives, and nothing here disturbs France's separate adult-content age checks under the SREN law, which remain in force. CONTEXT: Australia's under-16 ban came first in Dec 2025 and faces suits from Reddit and the Digital Freedom Project; Canadian law professors have argued Canada's equivalent breaches the Charter.
Timeline
- Jun 29, 2023First under-15 parental-consent law passed (unenforced)
- Jan 28, 2026National Assembly approves under-15 ban
- Jan 31, 2026Scheduled
- Aug 14, 2026Court hold
- Sep 1, 2026Targeted enforcement
Source: france24.com
