The French Senate adopted, during the night of October 27 to 28, 2026, a government amendment allowing the administration to request the removal of social media content that incites violence without prior judicial intervention. The text, approved by 229 senators against 105, imposes a 24-hour removal deadline when such content could cause a serious public-order disturbance; hosts that fail to comply face up to six months in prison, a €150,000 fine, or 2% of their global turnover. To limit the risk of unconstitutionality, the government removed the one-hour deadline, dropped the reference to the EU anti-terrorism regulation, and specified that content must “manifestly” call for an attack, insurrection, or armed action against the state. Oversight of requests from the Pharos reporting platform is assigned to a single qualified Arcom official, Laurence Pécaut-Rivolier, fueling concerns about shifting judicial decisions to the administrative sphere. The amended bill must now be reviewed by the National Assembly and could ultimately be referred to the Constitutional Council.
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