Attal's Referendum Call After the Under-15 Social Media Ban Was Struck Down

Former prime minister Gabriel Attal has asked President Emmanuel Macron to send the proposed ban on social media access for under-15s directly to French voters, after the Constitutional Council struck down the version adopted by Parliament.

The Council ruled on Friday that the law did not meet the test of being adapted, necessary and proportionate to its goal, because it restricted children's freedom of expression and communication. Later Friday, Macron asked Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu to propose a new, legally robust version of the text.

Writing in La Tribune Dimanche, Attal argued that the new text should not go back through the ordinary legislative process. Instead, he said, it should be submitted directly to the French people by referendum. He claimed that a fresh parliamentary procedure could take up to two years, leaving around 1.5 million children exposed to algorithms for an average of 1 hour 47 minutes per day.

Attal, a Renaissance presidential candidate, also defended the referendum's constitutional basis. He argued that a child-protection law containing an under-15 social media ban belongs to the nation's social policy, putting it within the scope of Article 11 of the Constitution.

Why the Constitutional Council Ruling and Referendum Debate Matter

Attal's Political Calculation

Attal is tying two themes together: child protection online and the view that French voters have been left out of major decisions for too long. He says France has not held a direct national consultation for 21 years. For a presidential candidate, this is both a policy position and a way to distinguish himself from Macron, who has so far asked only for a rewritten law rather than a referendum.

The Constitutional Council's Legal Threshold

The censure was not a rejection of the goal of protecting minors. The Council found that the blanket restriction was not adapted, necessary and proportionate to its stated purpose. Any new text must therefore either narrow the measure, add safeguards or better justify why under-15s specifically should be excluded from these platforms. That legal constraint will shape Lecornu's drafting as much as political pressure will.

What a Ban Would Mean for Platforms

If a ban is eventually adopted, platforms operating in France would face a new age-restriction regime for users under 15. The available account does not specify the technical or enforcement details of the censored law, so platform obligations remain unclear. Still, the direction of French policy is unmistakable: access by minors to algorithm-driven social networks is now a contested regulatory issue, and platforms should expect further legal constraints in some form.

What to Expect as the Ban Is Redrafted or Put to a Vote

  • Next decision point: Sébastien Lecornu's new draft, requested by Macron on Friday, will show whether the government narrows the original ban or tries to fix its legal basis. No date for that draft has been announced.
  • For platforms: A French under-15 restriction remains on the policy agenda despite the censure, because the president has committed to a legally robust replacement. Age-verification and minor-access compliance planning should treat a new text as a realistic medium-term scenario, not a dead issue.
  • For families: The censored law has no legal effect now. Any new ban depends on either a revised law or a referendum that Macron has not agreed to call, so there is no immediate change to children's access.