Are TikTok and Snapchat fuelling the chaos on French streets? President Emmanuel Macron thinks so.

President Macron has had enough of social media.

Speaking in Marseille on Monday, he didn't mince his words - he called platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and X "tools for mobilising the worst impulses" and said plainly: "social media is damaging our democracies."

Why now? France has been rocked by weeks of protests that have tipped into street violence and looting. Macron said that during the unrest on October 17, social media was specifically used "to bring young and not-so-young people to places where criminal acts, attacks and looting were taking place."

It’s not just politics. It’s teenagers getting a Snapchat map pin to a looted shop. It’s local business owners in Marseille watching their livelihoods smashed after a viral video call-out. It’s parents asking how a protest organised in a group chat ended with their kid in police custody.

This is Macron's go-to playbook. He said almost the same thing during the explosive Nahel Merzouk riots in summer 2023, when he blamed social media and video games and even threatened to cut platforms off. France has a long history of this - from the Yellow Vests in 2018, where Facebook groups organised roundabouts, to today, where algorithms do it in seconds.

The data backs up the worry: Over 60% of French 15-24-year-olds get their news primarily from TikTok and Instagram, according to Reuters Institute. When unrest kicks off, mobilisation is instant.

This is bigger than France. Macron is tapping into a huge European debate: who is responsible when an online post becomes an offline riot? With the EU's Digital Services Act now in force, governments can legally pressure platforms to remove content that incites violence - and fast.

So, can Macron actually shut it down? Short answer: not really. Under French law, a full social media blackout would be nearly impossible. But what he can do is demand platforms take down riot-organising content within hours, identify users who incite looting, and push for stricter age verification. Expect more pressure on Meta, Snap and TikTok in the coming days.

The government says it's talking to the platforms. The platforms say they’re removing harmful content. But until the streets calm down, that tug-of-war between free speech, public order, and Big Tech isn’t going anywhere.

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