11 November 2026 Curated by Vishaljeet Singh, Lisbon, Portugal
France has opened a new front in the debate over artificial intelligence regulation after an expert commission delivered 18 recommendations to President Emmanuel Macron on the risks posed by generative AI assistants. The report, presented on 10 November, calls for stronger safeguards for children, independent assessments of AI products and measures to prevent chatbots from exploiting users’ emotional and psychological vulnerabilities.
The recommendations cover consumer-facing assistants and AI companions, including services used for learning, advice and everyday conversation. The commission argues that the benefits of these tools should be preserved, but that their design and commercial incentives need closer scrutiny.
Why France wants stronger safeguards
The French Council on AI and Digital Technology says increasingly personalised interactions can blur the boundary between a machine and a human relationship. Features such as human-like personas, excessive flattery and highly responsive emotional language may encourage some users—especially minors—to develop unhealthy dependence on an assistant.
The report also raises concerns about what it describes as an emerging “cognitive economy”: a business model in which platforms could seek to monetise not only users’ attention, but also their emotions, thinking patterns and inferred psychological profiles. The commission warns that advertising or commercial influence embedded in conversational answers could make this risk harder for users to recognise.
18 recommendations: the main proposals
Independent safety assessments: Consumer AI systems should undergo multidisciplinary evaluation before entering the market, followed by stronger monitoring after release.
Protection for minors: Services accessible to children should have stronger safeguards, including the blocking of dangerous requests and better filtering of harmful content.
Less manipulative design: Human-like features and excessive flattery that can encourage emotional dependence should be restricted, with such features disabled by default where appropriate.
Clearer AI identification: Users should be reminded when they are interacting with an AI system rather than a person.
Better responses to vulnerability: Assistants should improve detection of conversations involving suicide, self-harm or eating disorders and direct users towards appropriate support.
Reporting harmful answers: Users and specialist organisations should have accessible ways to flag problematic AI responses.
Commercial transparency: Advertising and commercially influenced answers should be clearly labelled, while undisclosed commercial influence should be prohibited.
Transparency about user profiling: People should be able to inspect significant inferences that AI services draw about them from their conversations.
Information-crisis readiness: Public authorities should develop a rapid response protocol for AI-amplified disinformation, including deepfakes and coordinated manipulation.
Election safeguards: Political parties and candidates should commit not to use generative AI to deceive, manipulate or misinform voters.
The 18-point package contains additional operational and governance proposals. Its central direction is to make safety evaluation a condition of market access and continued operation, rather than relying only on action after harm has occurred.
Macron’s position: ban harmful uses, not AI as a whole
Macron has said AI should be prohibited in uses that put children’s mental health at risk. That political warning does not amount to a blanket proposal to ban AI assistants. The expert commission itself did not recommend a general prohibition, recognising the potential educational and practical value of these tools while calling for stricter rules, especially where minors are concerned.
Alongside the report, France has been promoting independent evaluation of advanced AI systems and cooperation between governments, researchers and technology companies. A separate AI safety charter discussed around the Paris Peace Forum is intended to encourage model assessments, access for independent researchers and the sharing of information about serious incidents.
Why the proposals matter for Europe’s AI industry
If adopted, the recommendations could influence how AI assistants are designed, tested, marketed and monitored in France and across the European Union. Requirements for pre-market assessments, child-specific protections and transparent advertising could raise compliance costs for technology companies, but they could also give users clearer information and stronger safeguards.
Several proposals would require coordination at European level because major AI services operate across borders. France can develop national protocols for issues such as election-period disinformation, but a consistent framework for the entry and continued operation of AI assistants would be more difficult to achieve through one country acting alone.
What happens next?
The report is advisory: its recommendations do not automatically become law. The French government and European institutions will have to decide which measures to pursue, what legal instruments to use and how to balance safety obligations with innovation, privacy and freedom of expression.
The debate is moving beyond whether AI should be regulated and towards the practical question of how. France’s proposals put child protection, transparent commercial practices, independent testing and democratic resilience at the centre of that discussion. The next test will be whether those principles are translated into enforceable rules.
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