2026

The National Catholic Register portal reports that the French Parliament has definitively adopted legislation establishing a “digital age of majority” at 15 years old, banning minors from accessing social media platforms and mandating universal age verification mechanisms that effectively institute a regime of generalized digital surveillance. The measure, championed by President Emmanuel Macron since 2017 and passed with overwhelming parliamentary support, extends the existing smartphone ban in schools to high schools and aligns with a broader European Union strategy for digital identity verification. Critics, including digital rights groups and the European Center for Law and Justice, warn that the law constitutes “generalized surveillance disguised as child protection” and threatens to become a universal identity verification regime. Early data from Australia’s similar ban suggests minimal impact on actual youth usage, with 85% of affected adolescents circumventing restrictions via fake accounts and private browsers. The article, reported by EWTN correspondent Solène Tadié, frames the measure as a pioneering child protection effort while noting civil liberties concerns. This legislative act manifests the totalitarian essence of the secular state: usurping the God-given authority of parents over the education and moral formation of their children, while erecting a panopticon of digital surveillance under the pretext of protecting the very children it subjects to a pagan, secularized education system.