In February this year, at the India AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, French President Emmanuel Macron looked across the hall towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi and issued a challenge that was part diplomatic nudge, part civilisational assertion.
"Mr Prime Minister, you will join this club," he said with characteristic Gallic confidence, urging India to ban social media for children. "Protecting children is not regulation—it is civilisation." The words landed with force. They also crystallised a debate that has been quietly gathering speed inside India's corridors of power for months.
Macron's appeal came in the context of a global wave of legislative action. Australia had already fired the first shot. In December 2025, it became the first country in the world to enforce a minimum age of 16 for social media use, under the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024. The law, which took effect on 10 December, required platforms to deactivate underage accounts and empowered the government to impose fines of up to A$49.5 million on companies that repeatedly failed to comply.
Within its first month, roughly 4.7 million underage accounts were removed. France followed, with its National Assembly approving a bill in January 2026 to bar children under 15 from social media, making it the second country to move towards such a restriction. Spain, Greece, and Indonesia announced similar plans in quick succession.
India was being asked to choose a side. As reports suggest, it appears to be moving in the same direction—but in its own distinct way.