Paris (France) (AFP) – Emmanuel Macron defended on Thursday the ban on social networks for those under 15, a flagship measure at the end of his mandate, and began to outline other avenues to regulate video games, AI or algorithms, but also to combat “manipulation of information”.

Published on: 05/02/2026 - 22:59

Two days after asking users of the Brut media to ask him questions about his projects to fight against disinformation, the Head of State responded in a long interview to try to educate on measures supposed to protect adolescents from screens which create "trauma" and "suffering" in them.

If the text adopted in the National Assembly is definitively voted on, in September social networks will be banned for those under 15 years old. There will then be an “age verification” in order to connect, but there will be “zero retention” of personal data, and anonymity will be preserved, he tried to reassure.

In the same way, virtual private networks (VPN) which often make it possible to circumvent local access restrictions will remain "authorized", he promised, and the "content" and uses of each person on the platforms will not be "monitored".

“We are not going to put a police officer behind each family, each screen,” insisted Emmanuel Macron, admitting that there will remain circumventions, as is the case for the consumption of alcohol by minors.

In the same spirit, the president announced that he had asked experts to study by "May-June" the dangers of video games for the mental health of young people.

In the event of a "scientific consensus" to say that the impact on young people of certain video games "is very bad", particularly those where we spend "five to six hours a day killing people", "perhaps we will have to ban", he warned.

At the same time, two professors in psychiatry and addictology will look into “AI agents” or “chatboxes” to determine if they “give rise to disorders, addictions, suffering in terms of mental health in young people and adolescents”. With a view to new “rules” which could also go as far as bans.

“Wild West”

He, who has long defended a cooperative approach with American tech giants, now says he is determined to "take back control" through more muscular regulation of what he considers to be the "Wild West" of the digital space.

As during his discussions with readers of the regional press during a tour in the fall, the Head of State also drew up his list of demands from the European Union, which is responsible for large parts of this regulation.

He said he wanted to push the European Commission to "impose AI marking": when content is produced with artificial intelligence, "it must be written at the bottom 'made with AI'".

In addition, he considered that the Twenty-Seven should require social networks accessible in the EU that their algorithm be “transparent for everyone”. And that the platforms can “guarantee” that “behind each account there is a real person”, to prohibit “fake accounts, bots, trolls”.

Platforms which do not respect these rules, or disseminate “content which is illegal” in France, for example racist or anti-Semitic, must become responsible before national justice, he argued.

“We know that the Russians massively buy millions of fake accounts during the election period,” “it’s a huge lever of interference,” Emmanuel Macron also warned.

He announced a permanent strengthening of Viginum, the service responsible for combating online destabilization, just in time before the municipal elections in March.

This agency will now go into "fire alert" mode and react "in real time" at "the first indication" of interference or "manipulation of information", he explained. And a “national strategy to combat information manipulation” will be made public “in a few days”.

© 2026 AFP

The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.