France asked its telecom operators to be ready to block TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X
Blast says it read a letter from the prime minister's office to Orange, SFR, Free and Bouygues ahead of the 24 October demonstration.
According to Blast, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu asked the four operators to be ready to cut access, and the operators voiced doubts in the meeting afterward. The article notes the same measure was used in New Caledonia in 2024 and was later overturned by the Conseil d'État.
Commenters outside France argued about whether blocking apps stops riots or just removes the witnesses.
What Blast reports
Blast says it reviewed the letter sent to the operators and the minutes of the meeting that followed. The request: be ready to cut access to TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and X in connection with the 24 October demonstration. Blast does not describe how blocking would work. It adds that the government used the measure in New Caledonia in 2024 before the Conseil d'État struck it down. I could not verify the letter independently.
The thread: why not just police the violent ones
"Why not just allow genuinely peaceful protests and take stern police/legal action against all other forms of protest? I don't understand the logic behind cutting access to communications platforms." — a commenter who opened the question
A French-context answer came back quickly.
"Peaceful protest is being facilitated, the problem is, not everyone is peaceful and there isn't enough police to arrest everyone." — KaiserPro
Another commenter, in Germany, rejected the premise that police only react.
"Cops escalate tensions in peaceful protests on the regular, when it fits their or their superiors narrative. The playbook is always the same here in Germany: create a temporary limitation…" — x3ro, writing from Germany
On circumvention, grodriguez100 estimated that VPN users are about 0.1% of all users, which would make a block effective even if easy to bypass. Whether a letter to operators is an order is the question the Conseil d'État already answered once in New Caledonia.
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