PARIS — The French National Assembly — the country’s lower chamber of parliament — passed on Tuesday the controversial “Law Aiming to Secure and Regulate the Digital Space,” which includes items targeting adult content which were added during a period characterized by relentless media attacks and panic-mongering against the porn industry.

Besides overtly aiming to regulate adult content online, the 36 articles of the law — which were the protracted result of a record 953 amendments to the original text —  also concern topics such as financial scams, online harassment and data protection.

The law was passed with the support of a coalition of parties 360-77. The left leaning Republican and Socialist parties supported the center-right Macron government in passing the law, with the far-left La France Insoumise party voting against it and declaring it “a mess.” The Communist, Green and the far-right parties also abstained.

Senator Laurence Rossignol (Socialist) readily admitted that the amendments — stemming from a sensationalist anti-porn parliamentary report — “will complicate the life of publishers of porn sites,” adding, “That is the goal.”

The entire first section of the law concerns adult content and grants government regulator ARCOM the power to block adult sites to minors at its own discretion, bypassing the French justice system.

As XBIZ reported, the adult provisions of the “Law Aiming to Secure and Regulate the Digital Space,” proposed in May by the Macron government, were inspired by the government’s desire to bypass the courts and force platforms to implement age verification. This will apply not only to specifically adult sites but also to any site that allows explicit content, including Twitter.

The law’s chief cheerleader, Macron’s Minister for Digital Transition Jean-Noël Barrot celebrated at the time the government’s plan to empower ARCOM to order, without needing to go through the courts, the blocking and delisting of adult sites that do not prevent minors from accessing their content.

The five most popular adult sites in France — Pornhub, Tukif, xHamster, XVideos and Xnxx — have been explicitly targeted by the government, in a blatant case of selective enforcement.

A Law Explicitly Drafted to Bypass the Justice System

In April, those sites presented their objections to the controversial, vaguely worded age verification law allowing ARCOM to seek a blocking order for sites that fail to prevent minors from accessing unspecified “online pornography.” France’s age verification mandate was surreptitiously added to a hastily approved domestic violence law during an atypical and sparsely attended COVID-era session of the French Parliament in July 2020.

The sites’ lawyers presented requests to nullify the proceedings and order a stay of the proposed block. The tribunal has since repeatedly delayed its opinion as it waited for the “Law Aiming to Secure and Regulate the Digital Space” to render the case moot.

The new law also requires website deploy mandatory tools for added age verification, and addresses deepfakes and non-consensual distribution of personal sex videos

Added protection against disinformation, deep fakes, scams, and online harassment

The second section, which was the most objected by the right-wing lawmakers, aims to protect the public from foreign propaganda, disinformation and interference. It also criminalizes new forms of slander, bullying and vaguely defined “sexist and sexual outrage.”

The third part of the law regulates data protection.

The legislation, which was approved by the Senate on July 7, will now return to a joint committee of the National Assembly before becoming law.