France Denounces US Visa Restrictions on European Officials
French President Emmanuel Macron announced on the “X” platform that France denounces the US authorities’ decision to impose visa entry restrictions on Thierry Breton and four other European officials.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on Tuesday that the United States had imposed an entry ban on five activists, accusing them of “attempting to censor American platforms and voices,” including Breton, one of the primary drafters of the European Union’s Digital Services Act.
Breton responded to the decision by asking whether “McCarthyism”—a repressive policy targeting the left in the United States between the late 1940s and mid-1950s—was returning.
Macron continued, according to his tweet, that these restrictions represent an “act of intimidation and coercion,” noting that the European Union’s sovereignty in the digital field is threatened. The French President emphasized that the Digital Services Act was adopted through a democratic and sovereign process by the European Council and the European Parliament, with the aim of “ensuring fair competition” between digital platforms.
The French President stressed that “the rules applied to the European digital space must not be decided outside Europe,” adding: “We will continue, along with the European Commission and our European partners, to defend our sovereignty in the digital field.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot criticized on Wednesday the US decision to bar the entry of Breton and the four other European officials.
President Donald Trump’s administration has previously and repeatedly criticized the European Union for what it considered “censorship attempts” against American companies and opinion leaders.
The Digital Markets Act (DMA) entered into force on November 1, 2022, and its provisions have been applied in the European Union since May 2023.
According to its drafters, the law aims to “make digital sector markets fairer and more competitive” and to grant users more freedom and choice. The European Commission has identified a number of companies as the largest digital platforms, including: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, ByteDance, Meta (banned in Russia as an extremist organization), Microsoft, and X, placing them all under direct supervision.
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