France has condemned Washington's decision to bar a former European Commissioner and four other prominent tech monitors from entering the United States as part of an escalating dispute over EU efforts to regulate social media platforms. The US accuses them of working to censor Americans online.
French national Thierry Breton, former member of the European Commission and an architect of the EU's landmark digital regulations, is one of five people to be denied visas to the US.
Four others working for non-governmental organisations that flag online disinformation and hate speech are also targeted.
"These radical activists and weaponised NGOs have advanced censorship crackdowns by foreign states – in each case targeting American speakers and American companies," the State Department said in a statement announcing the sanctions on Tuesday.
It is the latest move by President Donald Trump's administration to counter the European Union's bid to monitor and moderate content on social media platforms, including US-owned Facebook, Instagram and X.
Washington claims that EU rules result in censorship of right-wing viewpoints in particular, something Brussels denies.
France "strongly condemns" the visa ban, said Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
"The peoples of Europe are free and sovereign and cannot have the rules applying to their digital space imposed on them by others," he wrote in a post on X.
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'Witch hunt'
Breton compared the ban to a McCarthy-era "witch hunt".
"To our American friends: censorship isn't where you think it is," he wrote on X.
The other people subjected to visa bans are Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate; Josephine Ballon and Anna-Lena von Hodenberg, heads of German organisation HateAid for victims of online abuse; and Clare Melford, who runs the Global Disinformation Index.
In a joint statement, Ballon and von Hodenberg called the restrictions "an act of repression by a government that is increasingly disregarding the rule of law and trying to silence its critics by any means necessary".
The US claimed it was defending free speech. "For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organised efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose," said Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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Tit for tat
The EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which imposes content moderation and other standards on major social media platforms, has brought it into conflict with the US administration and its allies at tech giants.
The DSA stipulates that major platforms must explain content-moderation decisions, provide transparency for users and ensure researchers can carry out essential work, such as understanding how much children are exposed to dangerous content.
The EU imposed its first penalty under the act this month, fining Elon Musk's X €120 million for failing to meaningfully verify users marked with a blue tick meant to indicate that their identity had been checked. It also accused the company of failing to provide transparency around its adverts and denying researchers access to data on internal practices.
Last week the US government signalled that key European businesses could be targeted in response, listing Accenture, DHL, Mistral, Siemens and Spotify among others.
Trump has previously threatened to impose tariffs on all countries with digital taxes, legislation or regulations, saying they were designed to harm or discriminate against American technology.
(with AFP)
