Gavin Grey: UK correspondent on France looking to launch their own social media ban

France's parliament has approved a law to ban social media for under-15s from January 2027 - making it the first European nation to block teens under these restrictions.

The law will mean everyone in France must verify their age to access social media,  with French President Emmanuel Macron welcoming this move.

UK correspondent Gavin Grey says this comes after families in France have launched legal action towards TikTok over harmful content.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Devin Gray UK correspondence with US Hello, Gvin either had
all right, talk me through the social media ban in France.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yes, going to be quite interesting and very very difficult
to enforce the course, But what they're saying is, look,
children under the age of fifteen will not be allowed
to open a social media account from September, while platforms
will have a further four months to close accounts already open.
And they're also going to demand that an age verification

(00:29):
technology is approved by the French privacy regulator on all
these different social media outlets. And it comes after several
families in front of actually sued TikTok because teenage children
took their own lives. There's been similar problems here in
the UK, similar allegations of these problems, and many of
the relatives of the dead children say they really believe

(00:52):
their deaths were linked harmful content online. So the government
in France has acted. It has now approved this blanket ban.
It'll be the first European country to introduce such a restriction.
Both houses of parliament of the French parliament that's the
Senate and the National Assembly passed the bill. And the
move comes eight months after Australia brought in the world's
first band for under sixteens on platforms like social media Facebook, Snapchat,

(01:17):
TikTok etc. With growing concerns around the world. Heather so yep,
France the first to act in Europe and it could
really lead now, I think, to many other countries following suit.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Okay, how's this announcement come down? Now? Gone down with
you guys? About the two pound cap on the bus fares.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Yeah, it's another little measure that's been introduced by the
new Prime minister aimed at easing the cost of living pressure.
So we've had the announcement of the cut in tax
on electricity bills for households that was going to be
worth about ninety eight ninety nine New Zealand dollars a year,

(01:54):
so not massive. Now he's putting a bus fare cap
in England to four dollars forty and that will come
in from January. So again it's small beer. It's only
a cap. It is not free bus travel. They reckon.
It's going to cost a little over one and a
bit billion New Zealand dollars. And then, in fact, not

(02:16):
the first government to do this, the previous Conservative government
cap the fair at two pounds or that four dollars
forty and then Sakisstarma let it rise to three when
he was Prime minister, the first Labor prime minister. But
now Andy Burnham brought it back to two. Now according
to opinion polls and data, they're saying that it will

(02:38):
help reduce inflation and it is a popular measure because
many people are earning lower amounts of money do use
the bus a lot. But it found that the scheme
had been introduced earlier did contribute five percent to bus usage,
so it is something that is going to make a difference.
Although again people saying to Andy Burnham, where where is

(03:00):
the money coming from? Because you kept saying you're gonna
not do any unfunded handouts. Well, is this another one?
The government's come back saying that it's going to be
reallocated from the Department for Energy Security in Netzera in
other words, a shuffling of the deck chairs.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
Now listen, I see your chips. Appeared in court over
the murder of n woodcom Do we know anything more
about why he's alleged to have done it?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
No? No, And I'm afraid there was a genuine gasp
in court when some of the details came up, because
earlier in the day it said there was no clear
indication of the cause of her death. And then all
of a sudden we had the inquest. We had the
initial court hearing of this twenty eight year old man

(03:44):
Joshua Kerrey at magistrates and then straight to the Old
Bailey for another hearing, and it suddenly got revealed that
Anne widikemb had suffered twenty one blows to her head
from a hammer. So all of a sudden it taught that,
you know, they weren't quite sure if it was murder
or not at the start of the investigation seemed utterly
bizarre and out of place. So Joshua Kerrey arrested on

(04:08):
suspicion of murder two days after the former Conservative Minister
for Prisons and the Reform UK spokeswoman for Immigration. The
seventy eight year old found dead with serious injuries at
her home on Thursday, the ninth of July. But that
man Joshua Krey was later rearrested on suspicions of commission,
preparation or instigation and acts of terrorism, but still there

(04:30):
has been no definite link on that. What's interesting is
this is not going to make court for a hearing
until nearly a year June of next year. Why. Apparently
it's to give the police more time to go through
all the different phone telecommunications, you know, research that they've

(04:51):
got to do because you know, they've got to listen
to into phone calls, they've got to go through the emails,
they've got to look at what Internet searches might have
been made. But yeah, it just goes to show what
a lot of work they're now trying to put in
to seeing if this is linked terrorism or not.

Speaker 1 (05:05):
Yeah. Interesting, that is very interesting and it takes on
such a long time. Mate. Thank you very much, mate,
really appreciate it. Gavin Gray, UK correspondent.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
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