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A French court has issued another ruling that forces VPN providers to block access to pirate streaming websites.
This latest order targets popular VPN services including NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and ProtonVPN. The decision marks a growing trend in Europe that could eventually spread to the United States.
The Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris handed down its ruling on December 18. The French football league (LFP) requested the order. These VPN services must now block 13 domains that stream pirated sports content.
The following domains were listed:
This isn’t a one-time measure. The court created a “dynamic” order that allows authorities to add new domains throughout the 2025/2026 football season. French regulators can block additional mirror sites as they appear.
The ruling classifies VPN providers as “technical intermediaries” under France’s Sports Code. Courts now view these services the same way they treat internet providers.
France is also no stranger to imposing stricter regulations as we saw when they passed an anti-piracy bill last year along with rolling out an automated IPTV blocking system.
Several providers appeared in court to argue against the order. NordVPN and Surfshark raised a defense based on their “no-log” policies. They claimed that blocking French users would violate privacy commitments since they don’t track user locations.
The court rejected this argument. Judges stated that contracts between VPN companies and customers cannot override the rights of content holders.
NordVPN has already filed an appeal. A company spokesperson called site-blocking measures “futile” and said pirates can simply use subdomains to bypass restrictions.
France’s aggressive stance against VPN providers signals a new chapter in the fight over online streaming.
European countries keep expanding their anti-piracy tactics, moving beyond simple ISP blocks to target DNS resolvers and now VPN services.
Rights holders in the US have pushed for broader site-blocking powers, and if French courts keep winning these cases, American media companies may seek comparable rulings here…
For more details on this story, refer to the official order from Tribunal Judiciaire de Paris (PDF) and the report from TorrentFreak.
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