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Three in four European citizens think governments should set minimum ages for social media, a new POLITICO European Pulse survey of six major EU countries showed.

Half of respondents said the minimum age should be 16, while one in four said the age should be between 13 and 15. Only 4 percent said there should be no age restrictions for social media use, while 22 percent said restrictions should be left up to parents.

The poll comes as European governments plough ahead with measures to stop kids from having access to social media. Leaders like Spain’s Pedro Sánchez and France’s Emmanuel Macron are staunch supporters of social media bans, with Sánchez saying in February he wants to protect minors from “the digital Wild West.”

Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this week announced a social media ban for under-15s to take effect in January 2027. The European Commission is also considering imposing a bloc-wide social media age restriction rule.

But critics of the social media bans argue they are ineffective in protecting kids from online harms and actually infringe on kids’ rights. Such measures are “dangerous and socially unacceptable,” 371 security and privacy experts wrote in an open letter in early March.

The European Pulse survey, conducted by Cluster17 for POLITICO and beBartlet, polled 6,698 Europeans across Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Poland and Belgium from March 13 to March 21.

Respondents in Italy and Poland were most in favor of restrictions (84 percent and 83 percent, respectively), followed by Belgium (76 percent). In Germany and Spain, 70 percent of respondents agreed with restrictions.

People in France were most split on whether government-mandated restrictions are appropriate, with 69 percent in favor and 31 percent against.

France is working on a social media ban for under-15s, with the government aiming for restrictions to come into effect in September.

Most people are leaning toward establishing 16 years of age as the threshold for having social media accounts. Italians were the most supportive of that threshold, with 64 percent of respondents approving it, followed by Spain (55 percent), Belgium (54 percent), Poland (53 percent), France (48 percent) and Germany (39 percent).

Germany had the highest rate of people dismissing any age restrictions, at 7 percent of respondents.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has expressed tentative support for a ban for under-14s, saying earlier this year that he has “a lot of sympathy” for a proposal for such a measure from the Social Democratic Party. The German government has also commissioned an expert panel to issue a recommendation in the coming months.

The European Pulse was conducted by Cluster17 for POLITICO and beBartlet from March 13 to 21, surveying 6,698 adults online, with at least 1,000 respondents each from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain. Results for each country were weighted to be representative on dimensions including age, gender and geography.

Hanne Cokelaere contributed reporting.