France eyes social media ban for under-15s after school stabbing
PARIS: French authorities have announced plans to ban social media for under-15s and the sale of knives to minors after the murder of a teaching assistant by a 14-year-old boy plunged the country into shock.
A secondary school pupil was arrested on Tuesday after killing a 31-year-old school assistant with a knife during a bag search in Nogent in eastern France.
'I am proposing banning social media for children under 15,' President Emmanuel Macron said on X on Tuesday evening. 'Platforms have the ability to verify age. Let's do it,' he added.
Backed by France and Spain, Greece has spearheaded a proposal for how the EU should limit children's use of online platforms as evidence shows that social media can have negative effects on children's mental and physical health.
Macron said on Tuesday that if no progress was made within several months, then France would go ahead with the ban unilaterally.
'We cannot wait,' he told broadcaster France 2.
France has in recent years seen several attacks on teachers and pupils by other schoolchildren.
In March, police started random searches for knives and other weapons concealed in bags at and around schools.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Francois Bayrou's office said a ban on the sale of knives to minors will be implemented by a decree issued within the next two weeks.
Speaking to broadcaster TF1 on Tuesday evening, Bayrou said that the measure would come into force 'immediately'.
The list will include 'any knife that can be used as a weapon', he said.
Bayrou has also called for a trial of metal detectors in schools.
Education Minister Elisabeth Borne called for a minute's silence to be held in all French schools at midday on Thursday to honour the memory of the teaching assistant.
'The entire educational community is in shock, as is the whole nation,' she told France Inter radio.
Borne said she was 'open to anything' to improve safety but added that ceramic blades would be invisible to metal detectors.
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