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Canal+ and beIn Sports force VPNs to block illegal WTA tennis and F1 streams
- A French Court has issued new orders against five popular VPN services to block more pirated sites illegally broadcasting live sports events
- Streaming giants Canal+ and beIN raised the requests on July 18, 2025, against NordVPN, Proton VPN, CyberGhost, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN
- A landmark ruling 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 on the market right now have, yet again, found themselves under the spotlight of the Paris Judicial Court with demands to block sites providing illegal sports live streams.
As reported by TorrentFreak, global sports broadcaster beIN Sports France raised a successful request for NordVPN, Proton VPN, and CyberGhost to block seven domains hosting WTA tennis streams.
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 broadcast rights holder Canal+.
These orders follow a landmark ruling in May, which 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 decisions issued on July 18, 2025, enforces the blocking of those sites until the end of their 2025 season. For F1, that’s set for December 7, 2025. For the WTA tennis, the judge ruled until November 10, 2025.
Canal+ first shared plans to target VPN usage in an escalation of anti-piracy tactics back in February. This came after the streaming giant carried a successful legal action against DNS services in 2024.
Fast-forward to May 2025, and with two rounds of illegal streaming blocks already under its belt, it seems likely that the official French streamers are not done yet.
With BeIn Sports now following suit, and getting its way in court, we will surely see more paid services jumping on board to protect their investments in the rights to broadcast live sports events.
Are VPNs striking back?
Talking to TechRadar back in May, the VPN industry raised many concerns about France’s blocking orders, including a potential technical difficulty in fulfilling such requests.
All the targeted services, in fact, are known to operate under strict no-log VPN policies. This means that they don’t log any activities or other data linked to the users.
A NordVPN spokesperson told TechRadar at the time that the team was still evaluating how to identify customers in French territories while preserving the services’ privacy obligations.
Those complaints have been given short shrift by the Paris Judicial Court, though, which rejected “the grounds of inadmissibility” raised by all the VPN providers, on July 18.
The Court even dismissed the opportunity for referral to the EU Court issued by ExpressVPN and CyberGhost, leaving the VPN companies seeming with no escape route.
We have approached the VPN providers for more clarification on the matter, but we are still waiting for a response at the time of writing.
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