The European Commission presents its long awaited EU Kids Act today, with Executive Vice-President Henna Virkkunen unveiling proposed age brackets for children’s access to social media, online games, chatbots, and companion applications across the entire bloc. The announcement carries particular significance for France, whose own attempt at a national ban on social media access for under fifteens was struck down by the country’s Constitutional Council last month.
A draft circulating ahead of today’s presentation outlined four distinct age brackets, with no platform access permitted below age three, parent controlled accounts available from age three, introductory accounts from age thirteen, and fully independent accounts from age fifteen. The same framework reportedly extends beyond traditional social media to cover video sharing services, online games, chatbots, and companion applications, reflecting the Commission’s ambition to address a considerably broader range of digital services than France’s original national legislation attempted to regulate.
France’s own experience offers a cautionary tale that likely shaped today’s European approach. The French Constitutional Council struck down Article 1 of the country’s minors protection law on August 14, ruling that a blanket ban on social media access for those under fifteen constituted a disproportionate infringement on freedom of expression and communication. The Council specifically objected to the law’s lack of individuation, since it would have denied all minors under fifteen access without any mechanism for parents to authorize specific services after being informed of relevant risks and safeguards.
President Emmanuel Macron responded to that setback by directing Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu to develop a legally robust revised proposal capable of satisfying both constitutional requirements and European Union law. The government has reportedly targeted having a revised bill ready by spring 2027 at the latest, though the Constitutional Council’s ruling already delayed the original September 1 implementation date that had been planned for the initial legislation.
Today’s EU wide proposal offers France a potential path forward that addresses some of the constitutional concerns raised domestically, since a graduated, age tiered system with parental control options looks considerably more proportionate than an absolute ban applying uniformly to all minors regardless of specific platform risks. French officials have indicated interest in shifting attention toward Brussels precisely because a coordinated European approach might succeed where purely national legislation ran into constitutional obstacles.
The proposal draws explicit inspiration from Australia’s pioneering ban on social media accounts for those under sixteen, though the European version takes a notably different graduated approach rather than Australia’s single age threshold. This distinction reflects the European Commission’s apparent effort to build in the kind of proportionality and individuation that French courts found lacking in the national legislation.
Before binding any platform operating within the European Union, the EU Kids Act will require agreement from both the European Parliament and all twenty seven member state governments, a process that typically takes considerable time even for less contentious legislation. Given the significant public and political attention already surrounding online safety for minors following France’s domestic legal battle, today’s proposal is likely to generate substantial debate as it moves through this lengthy approval process.
As policymakers across the continent digest today’s proposal, French officials in particular will be watching closely to see whether this European framework offers the legally sound foundation their own domestic efforts have so far failed to achieve, potentially resolving through Brussels what proved constitutionally impossible to accomplish through purely national legislation in Paris.
