- A French court has issued new orders against five popular VPN services to block more pirated places that illegally emit live sporting events
- Streaming Giants Canal+ and Bein raised the requests on July 18, 2025, against NordVPN, Proton VPN, Cyberghost, Surfshark and ExpressVPN
- A landmark decision in May ordered the same VPNs to block access to over 200 pirate domains
France has continued to tighten its grip on online piracy this summer with another round of court orders for some household names in VPN.
Five of the best VPN providers in the market right now have once again found themselves under the limelight of the Paris Court with requirements to block sites that supply illegal sporting streams.
As reported by Torrentfreak, the global sports broadcasting institution Bein Sports France raised a successful request for NordVPN, Proton VPN and Cyberghost to block seven domains hosting WTA tennis flows.
While NordVPN, Proton VPN, Cyberghost, Surfshark and ExpressVPN now have to close access to their customers to five web domains showing Formula One after complaints from the country’s TV rights holder Canal+.
These orders follow a landmark decision in May that forced the same VPN companies to block access to over 200 pirate domains. An action that, according to the VPN industry, set “a dangerous precedent.”
New French VPN -blocking orders
The Court’s decisions, which were handed down on July 18, 2025, enforce the blockage of these places until the end of their 2025 season. For F1 it is set to December 7, 2025. For WTA -Tennis, the judge gave up until November 10, 2025.
Canal+ first shared plans to target VPN use in an escalation of anti-piracy tactics back in February. This came after the streaming giant had a successful lawsuit against DNS services in 2024.
Frop until May 2025, and with two rounds of illegal streaming blocks already under the belt, it seems that the official French streamers are not finished yet.
With Bein Sports now afterwards and to get our way in court, we will definitely see more paid services jumping on board to protect their investments in the rights to broadcast live sporting events.
Beating VPNs back?
When he spoke with Techradar back in May, the VPN industry raised many concerns about France’s blocking orders, including a potential technical difficulty in meeting such requests.
In fact, it is known that all the targeted services work under strict NO-Log VPN policies. This means that they do not log any activities or other data associated with users.
A NordVPN spokesman said at the time that the team still assessed how to identify customers on French territories while retaining the service’s confidentiality obligations.
However, these complaints have had a brief overwrite of the Paris Judicial Court, who rejected “The Grounds of Affisibility” raised by all VPN providers on July 18.
The court even rejected the possibility of referral to the EU Court issued by ExpressVPN and Cyberghost, which left the VPN companies apparently without the escape route.
We have approached VPN providers for more clarification on the case, but we are still waiting for a response at the time of writing.
