The French Government has threatened to block five major pornographic websites, unless they introduce age verification to check users are 18+.

France’s Higher Audiovisual Council gave Pornhub, xHamster, Xvideos, XNXX and Tukif until December 28 to comply with the law.

It brings France into line with Germany in proactively acting against sites that fail to block underage users.

The council said sites were breaking the law by failing to protect under 18s:

A few years ago, the UK was set to become the first country in the world to introduce robust, age verification controls on porn websites.

MPs and Peers voted for age controls as part of the Digital Economy Act 2017.

However, following months and years of dither and delay, on 16 October, Ministers did a U-turn and age checks were scrapped.

Then, when the draft Online Safety Bill was first published, there was no mention of age verification or of commercial porn sites.

CARE raised this concern in its submission to the Joint Committee which scrutinised the draft bill.

In its report and recommendations to government, the committee pointed out the Bill’s failure to include age checks on commercial porn.

Just before Christmas, Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries implied the government was minded to introduce age verification.