France, along with Greece, Spain, and Ireland, intends to promote pan-European legislation that would force social media to verify age when creating an account, France’s Deputy Minister of State for Digital Policy, Clara Chapaz, said

As the deputy minister points out in an interview with French newspaper Liberation, French President Emmanuel Macron had advocated banning mobile phone use before the age of 11 and social media before 15, based on expert findings on the effects of young people’s exposure to screens.

According to Chapaz, “we need to go further than the European institutional framework of the Digital Services Act to strengthen its solvency and oblige social media to not accept account creation without age verification.” The Secretary of State also said she wants to mobilise European partners on mandatory age verification. “My job today is to ally with Spain, Greece, and Ireland to convince the European Commission,” the French deputy minister added.