Emmanuel Macron stood in front of cameras in India this week and said something that would have gotten him laughed out of any American political conversation. He called free speech “pure bullshit.”

Not hate speech. Not misinformation. Not some narrow category of dangerous content. Free speech itself. The foundational principle of Western civilization. The right that every other right depends on. The thing that separates democracies from dictatorships. Pure bullshit, according to the president of France.

And he wasn’t venting. He was building a case.

The Argument

Macron’s logic goes like this: social media algorithms are opaque. Users don’t know how content is selected, ranked, or promoted. Therefore, the speech they encounter isn’t truly “free” — it’s guided. And because it’s guided by algorithms rather than chosen by individuals, governments should step in to regulate the road between the speaker and the listener.

“Free speech is pure bullshit if nobody knows how you are guided to this so-called free speech,” Macron said, “especially when it is guided from one hate speech to another.”

It’s a clever argument. It’s also a trap. Because what Macron is actually proposing isn’t algorithm transparency. It’s government control of the information pipeline. He wants a “transparent road through these different speeches” to safeguard “public order.” He wants to decide which speech is acceptable and which speech is “hate” — and he wants the power to enforce that decision.

When a government official says “I want to avoid a racist speech, hate speech,” what they mean is: I want to decide what counts as racist, and I want the power to silence it. That’s not transparency. That’s censorship with better branding.

The Raids Already Started

This isn’t theoretical. French authorities raided the Paris offices of X — Elon Musk’s social media platform — in early February as part of a criminal investigation into alleged algorithm manipulation and the spread of “illegal content.” Police. In offices. Seizing records. Because a social media company’s algorithm didn’t conform to the French government’s preferences.

Macron has also proposed that anyone convicted of anti-Semitic or racist remarks should automatically lose eligibility to hold public office. On its face, opposing anti-Semitism sounds reasonable. In practice, it means a French court decides what constitutes a racist “remark,” and that decision permanently bars someone from democratic participation.

Who defines racist? The government. Who enforces it? The government. Who loses their right to run for office based on speech? Whoever the government decides. The potential for abuse isn’t a side effect — it’s the feature.

The EU Machine

Macron isn’t operating alone. The European Union’s Digital Services Act — which took effect in 2024 — gives EU governments sweeping authority to force platforms to police content deemed “harmful” by government authorities. The European Commission has already opened an investigation into X under the DSA, examining whether Musk’s platform adequately assessed “risks” associated with its AI chatbot before launching it across EU member states.

A German court ordered X to grant researchers access to data linked to Hungary’s upcoming election — a move transparently designed to influence the political challenge to Viktor Orbán, Trump’s closest European ally. The EU isn’t just regulating speech. It’s using speech regulation as a weapon against political movements it doesn’t like.

This is what Rubio warned about in Munich. This is what Vance torched European leaders for last year. The retreat from free speech isn’t a slippery slope in Europe. It’s a completed slide. They’re at the bottom, building infrastructure to make sure nobody climbs back up.

The Trump Administration’s Response

The Trump administration saw this coming. The December national security strategy pledged to fight foreign efforts to “censor our discourse” and promised to cultivate “resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”

Secretary of State Rubio imposed visa bans on a former European official and activists for policing “hate speech,” describing the action as pushback against the “global censorship-industrial complex.” That’s the U.S. government formally recognizing that European speech regulation is a threat to American values — and acting on it.

Macron predicted that the Trump administration would “attack us over digital regulation” in the coming months and suggested the U.S. might use tariffs against the EU if the bloc continues using the DSA to control American tech companies. He’s right — and he’s scared. Because Trump and Musk represent the one force that European censors can’t easily contain: an American government that believes free speech is a non-negotiable right, not a privilege the state grants and revokes.

The Line in the Sand

Here’s what Macron doesn’t understand — or understands perfectly and opposes. Free speech isn’t free because the algorithm is transparent. Free speech is free because the government doesn’t get to decide what you’re allowed to say. The mechanism of delivery is irrelevant. Whether you’re shouting on a street corner, publishing a pamphlet, or posting on X, the right is the same: the government stays out.

The moment you accept Macron’s premise — that speech isn’t truly free unless the government ensures the pathway to that speech meets its standards — you’ve surrendered the principle. You’ve given the state veto power over the information environment, dressed up as consumer protection.

Europe has already surrendered. The UK arrests people for social media posts. Germany fines platforms for failing to remove content the government doesn’t like. France raids offices. The EU investigates elections. And the president of France stands in front of the world and calls free speech “pure bullshit.”

America hasn’t surrendered. Not yet. And as long as the Trump administration treats European censorship as the threat it is — with visa bans, tariff threats, and diplomatic confrontation — the Atlantic will remain the dividing line between a civilization that trusts its citizens to speak and one that doesn’t.

Macron can call free speech whatever he wants. The First Amendment doesn’t require his approval. And no amount of algorithm regulation will change that.