French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked the country's four main internet service providers to be ready to temporarily block access to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X, according to an exclusive report published by the outlet Blast. The request was sent two days before a protest planned for 24 October, the report says.
Blast says it obtained the letter and the minutes of the meeting that followed, where representatives of Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom reportedly raised doubts about the measure. The blocking would have been carried out through DNS, the system that translates a website name into a server address.
Neither the French government nor the four operators has publicly confirmed the documents cited by Blast. The story is being reported on the basis of that outlet's investigation, and the article was published as Tunisia and other countries watch how the European Union's platform-regulation wave unfolds.
What the Blast report says about the DNS blocks
According to Blast, the plan was to have operators stand by to cut access to four major social platforms: TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X. The request was made shortly before the 24 October demonstration, the outlet adds.
The report states that the operators expressed reservations during the follow-up meeting. DNS blocking is technically simple to activate but easy to bypass, and it can affect millions of users who are not involved in any protest.
Blast also recalls that the French government used a similar measure in New Caledonia in 2024, and that the Conseil d'État, France's top administrative court, later ruled against it. The outlet describes the DNS approach as a restriction on freedoms, a characterization that the government has not responded to publicly.
- Platforms named in the Blast report: TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X
