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French President Emmanuel Macron urged high school students to have one “Offline Day” per month to disconnect from screens and read instead.
“We left you in this jungle and it robbed you of your attention,” he told some 350 children on Thursday at the country’s International City of the French Language.
In January he called for a social media ban for children under 15, and in 2024 he commissioned a team of experts who said that children under the age of three should not have any screen time.
“We need to slow down and help you become adults, and above all citizens,” Macron said.
“That’s why what we want to do is say that before 15 years old, no more social media. And we’d like, one day a month, to have an offline day… to show it’s possible,” he said, adding that this day could be used to read or do other activities such as acting out plays.
The President made his comments at the Cité internationale de la langue française (International City of the French Language) in Villers-Cotterêts at the Château de Villers-Cotterêts, near Paris, which he established and renovated as part of his mandate to restore cultural projects.
In April, lawmakers in France’s Senate approved a plan to restrict social media for children under the age of 15. However, the Senate’s bill differs from the Assemblée Nationale (National Assembly), France’s lower house, version of how social media should be restricted.
The legislation passed in January asks that all social media platforms delete all accounts belonging to children under 15 and refuse new users under that age. It also asks for mobile phones to be banned in high school.
The different versions of the ban mean that they will likely have to find a compromise, which could delay the legislation being applied.
France is not the only country to consider a social media ban for under-15s. Across Europe, countries are considering similar bans after Australia became the first country in the world to ban children under 16 from social media in December.
Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told social media companies on Thursday to take responsibility for children’s safety on their platforms and meet parents’ demands for protection instead of “tweaks around the edges”.
“Today, I’m calling on senior leaders from X, Meta, Snap, YouTube and TikTok to step up,” he wrote on the social media platform X.
“I will do whatever it takes to keep children safe online”.