France's PM asked telecoms to prepare temporary social-media suspension, Blast reports
French investigative outlet Blast has reported that Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu wrote to the country's four main telecom operators asking them to prepare to temporarily suspend access to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X in the event of recurring urban violence.
French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked the country’s four main telecom operators to prepare to temporarily suspend access to major social-media platforms in the event of recurring urban violence, investigative outlet Blast has reported.
According to Blast, Lecornu wrote on 22 October to executives at Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues Telecom, asking them to be ready to block access to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X through DNS filtering “in the event of recurring urban violence”, with any suspension lasting “a few hours” and timed ahead of planned demonstrations on the weekend of 24 and 25 October (Blast, Türkiye Today).
Members of Lecornu’s cabinet also met the operators’ legal directors in the run-up to the weekend protests, according to reports of the disclosure, with any restrictions to be limited to mobile phones and specific areas (Türkiye Today).
The reported letter came amid a wave of cost-of-living protests in France, following a mobilisation day on 17 October that led to severe unrest and more than 1,000 arrests, according to El Ciudadano’s account of the Blast disclosure (El Ciudadano).
No source reporting the letter has said the suspension was actually activated over the weekend.
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