French President Emmanuel Macron’s suggestion that the government might need the ability to block social media access during riots has sparked a backlash in the country, with some arguing that France is going the way of authoritarian regimes.
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Addressing a meeting of more than 200 mayors of French towns affected by the ongoing protests at the Élysée Palace on Tuesday, Macron accused social media platforms including Snapchat, TikTok and encrypted messenger Telegram of contributing to the riots following the June 27 fatal police shooting of a 17-year-old of North African descent.
Macron proposed that the government regulate or suspend social media when needed, but said this will not take place “in the heat of the moment,” local media reported. The president’s press team confirmed those reports.
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Asked about Macron’s comments during a news conference on Wednesday, government spokesman Olivier Véran said the president did not necessarily mean a general blackout, but could have meant “a question of suspending certain functions” temporarily.
The government will “need the authority to suspend them as needed,” Véran added.
Last week, Macron expressed concerns over the mapping tools offered by TikTok and Snapchat, which he said could allow rioters to monitor events in real time and organize illicit gatherings more easily. He has also called for an end to online anonymity.
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Opposition politicians have decried the comments, with conservative parliamentary chief Olivier Marleix calling it a “provocation to divert attention” that is “in very bad taste,” and far-left France Unbowed chief Mathilde Panot comparing Macron to the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“It’s worrying when we come to think that the only solution is to cut off social networks,” Marine Tondelier, the leader of France’s Green party, said in an interview with French Inter, a major public radio channel.
Even within Macron’s Renaissance party, some have voiced disagreements.
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Eric Bothorel, a lawmaker who works on tech policy, tweeted that the suggestion is “a mistake” and “never an option,” saying it would mean abandoning the idea “that democracy is stronger than the tools used against it.”
The killing of teenager Nahel M. by a police officer last week plunged France into chaos, sparking a wave of violent protests across the nation and reigniting a fraught debate about race, identity and police violence. Last week, Macron blamed social media platforms and video games for stirring youth rebellion.
Macron’s comments risk “creating a dangerous prototype for those E.U. member states with already weakened rule of law,” said Eliska Pirkova, a senior Europe policy analyst at the digital rights advocacy Access Now. “Such a shortsighted action would mean a strong blow to democracy and its core values that would be very hard to recover from.”
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No European country fully blocks social media, but Belarus, Spain, Turkey and Ukraine do restrict it. In 2019, Spain passed a decree that allows the government to shut down websites and social media that are deemed “immediate and serious threats” to public order or national security. Russia restricted digital services including Facebook, Twitter and TikTok shortly after it invaded Ukraine in February last year.
Under an existing internet regulation bill, the French government can order social networks to remove child pornography and terrorism-related online content within an hour, and other “hateful” content within 24 hours. However, what constitutes hateful content can often be subjective.
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In the wake of the riots, some lawmakers have tried to tighten social media controls during votes to revise the internet bill, which is under parliament discussion and expected to be ready in the fall. A proposed amendment by senator Patrick Chaize will oblige social networks to block access to content clearly inciting violence within two hours.
“While platforms often fail to adequately address the dissemination of incitement to violence online, excessive measures for regulating online speech only deepen existing inequalities, and would create a further divide in French society,” Pirkova, the policy analyst, said in an email.
In 2020, France’s constitutional court struck down several legal measures about hate speech, arguing they would violate the right to freedom of expression, she noted.
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Jean-Noël Barrot, a minister in charge of digital transition and telecommunications, gave “a very unfavorable opinion” to the proposed amendment “because it presents an extremely high risk of unconstitutionality,” BFMTV reported.
If the infringement on the freedom of expression is required to address social unrest, Barrot said, “then that means we haven’t quite found the right formulas.”
