Emmanuel Macron is not the first politician to argue that technology must serve people rather than the other way around. But in Delhi, at one of the most significant AI gatherings in recent memory, he made that argument with unusual precision — and with the political authority of someone who has both a domestic policy record and an international platform to back it up. The line he drew was clear: AI progress that comes at the expense of children is not progress.
The evidence supporting that line is substantial. Unicef and Interpol research found that 1.2 million children in 11 countries had been victimised by AI deepfakes in a single year. In some nations, this translates to one child per classroom. The technology enabling these crimes is legal, widely available and improving rapidly. The platforms hosting the content have, despite repeated warnings, failed to eliminate it. Macron’s argument is that these facts constitute a verdict on the sufficiency of industry self-regulation.
France’s response has been concrete. A ban on social media access for under-15s is under development. The G7 presidency, held by France, will prioritise child safety as an international standard rather than a national experiment. Macron called on all governments to treat the internet as a space subject to the same legal standards as the physical world — a principle that is straightforward in theory and complicated in practice but necessary in both.
The Trump administration’s counter-argument, as articulated in Delhi, is that regulation of any kind risks harming American AI competitiveness. Macron rejected this framing, describing it as misinformed and pointing to Europe’s continued innovation under its regulatory framework as evidence. His tone suggested he is not particularly worried about losing this argument — and the international support he received at Delhi, from Guterres and Modi and even, tentatively, from Sam Altman, suggests he may be right.
The test of Macron’s Delhi declarations will come through France’s G7 presidency and its aftermath. International commitments on child safety that do not produce enforceable standards are merely symbolic. Macron knows this — his domestic policy suggests he understands the difference between rhetoric and results. The children who need protection will judge the summit not by the speeches made there but by the policies that follow.