French equality minister launches war with Big Tech, flabbergasting digital ministry

France’s digital ministry has spent months painstakingly lobbying Big Tech to support its ambitious plans to enact an age limit for social media use. 

But it took one minister fewer than five minutes to exhaust all that hard-earned political capital.

It was Monday, and the official in question, equality minister Aurore Bergé, had summoned representatives of Big Tech in France for a very public scolding in front of both government representatives and the media.  

Flanked by regulators, law enforcement and Clara Chappaz, the minister overseeing digital affairs and artificial intelligence, Bergé began the meeting in an ornate government office with a nearly five-minute tirade accusing Meta, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube of not doing enough to combat influencers posting sexist and violent content.  

“The time for irresponsibility is over,” said Bergé, whose full brief includes gender equality and the fight against discrimination. “The Republic expects more than just intentions from you. It expects results. From now on, you must and will be held accountable in a regular, transparent and public manner.” 

Chappaz and her team didn’t disagree with the overall message of Bergé’s tirade, but objected to her maximalist demands and attack-dog tone — and they weren't alone. Granted anonymity to candidly discuss the meeting, several people in the room told POLITICO they had been floored by Bergé’s decision to turn the meeting into a political spectacle. 

"This is never the way we worked with the government in France,” said a representative of a platform present at the meeting. 

Another industry employee there said it was the “most damning proceeding I’ve seen since I started doing this job.”  

The meeting yielded few tangible results and strained the relationship between the French government and Big Tech, an industry that French President Emmanuel Macron has long considered an ally.  

It also exposed a turf war between Bergé and Chappaz. 

'This isn’t China’ 

Although just 37, Bergé has been in the French political spotlight for years. Like former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal and current European Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné, she was one of the many young upstarts who hitched their careers to Macron's star by joining his upstart centrist movement before the 2017 election.  

Bergé has risen through the ranks since then, earning a reputation as a savvy operator both behind the scenes and in the media, someone unafraid to go on the offensive to defend Macron’s policies. 

But she’s also had her share of controversies.

A muckraking book published in September and exposing the squalid conditions and avaricious practices of private day care facilities in France alleged that while serving as the minister for families, Bergé had maintained uncomfortably close ties to an industry lobbyist.

Bergé has denied any wrongdoing and sued the author for defamation two weeks after the book’s release.  

Monday’s meeting bore many of the hallmarks of a Bergé public relations strategy, and attendees saw it as little more than a stunt. One participant said that once the cameras had left, it was hard to get anything done as Bergé was “frustrated” by the imprecise answers she received. 

“She said it wasn't her role to report problematic content to us, and that's true: There are normally legal procedures for that.” 

The problem appears to be one of expectations. Bergé had before Monday successfully lobbied TikTok to delete the account of a controversial former reality TV star whose posts her office said were contributing to a culture of “hyper-sexualization.”  

TikTok's compliance set a dangerous precedent, one meeting participant explained. Bergé thereafter expected the companies to adhere to her demand ahead of the meeting to delete the accounts of a half-dozen influencers whose content she deemed sexist or violent. 

Three platforms present at the exchange, including TikTok, told POLITICO they were beginning to review the content of the accounts reported by the minister, without committing to deleting them at this stage. 

The Big Tech representatives at the meeting who spoke to POLITICO were also taken aback by what appeared to be some rookie mistakes from Bergé’s office, including not inviting to the meeting any of the "trusted flaggers” French regulator ARCOM relies on to monitor illegal content on social networks.

As the meeting went on, it became clear her office didn't have the same grasp over the finer points of digital regulation as Chappaz and those working for her. 

Some were stunned to hear Bergé rely on the Digital Services Act in her call to delete influencer accounts, when in fact the DSA requires platforms to provide tools related to reporting and blocking illegal content, not account creators directly.

“We delete content on a per-content basis, and certainly not on the orders of a ministerial authority — this isn't China,” one participant said. 

Who’s the boss 

During the public portion of the meeting, Chappaz assumed a better poker face than her chief of staff Pierre Bouillon. But her aides were sufficiently concerned by what played out that they later reached out to those who had been in the room to assuage their fears. 

In the days that followed, both offices tried to play down any hints of a schism. But few are buying it. 

“Chappaz’s office defends itself by claiming to be taking action rather than making statements, but the truth is they are being walked all over,” said one government official. 

For Chappaz, the concern is that Bergé’s confrontational approach could undo her team’s efforts to collegially lobby industry to back its proposal for a social media age limit, an ambitious regulatory challenge.  

Bergé, however, isn’t going anywhere. She clearly believes her remit in fighting discrimination and promoting gender equality extends well into Chappaz's jurisdiction in the digital sphere.

Joshua Berlinger contributed to this report.