{"id":74757,"date":"2026-05-04T23:27:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:27:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/74757\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T23:27:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T23:27:18","slug":"french-anti-fast-fashion-law-stalls-as-brussels-objects-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/74757\/","title":{"rendered":"French \u2018Anti-Fast Fashion\u2019 Law Stalls as Brussels Objects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

France\u2019s so-called \u201canti-fast fashion\u201d law<\/a> has hit a snag.<\/p>\n

Writing in an April 15 reaction, the European Commission said that Loi Violland\u2014a bill designed to curb overconsumption by regulating the environmental impacts of low-cost, high-volume brands\u2014runs afoul of the EU single market, violates existing e-commerce regulations and is otherwise \u201cincompatible with Union law.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from WWD<\/p>\n

The letter argued that Loi Violland\u2019s restrictions on advertising that encourage overconsumption violate the \u201ccountry of origin\u201d principle under EU law, which requires that a digital service provider should only be subject to the regulations of the member state where it is established. Imposing French-specific bans and penalties on companies headquartered in other EU states\u2014such as Ireland, where both Shein and Temu run their European operations\u2014oversteps its jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, because the EU is rolling out its own Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, the European Commission<\/a> warned that France<\/a>\u2019s mandatory \u201ceco-score\u201d and financial penalties could result in policy fragmentation, contributing to a patchwork of rules that would complicate cross-border trade. The 27-member bloc is also developing a digital product passport, along with other textile sustainability standards that could be upended by France\u2019s unilateral legislation.<\/p>\n

Despite a general Europe-wide shift toward deregulating sustainability, France has doubled down on its need to impose stricter oversight on companies like Shein<\/a> and Temu<\/a> out of a combination of environmental urgency, consumer safety concerns and a desire to safeguard its own struggling domestic textile industry. Named after French politician Anne-C\u00e9cile Violland, Loi Violland was unanimously approved by the National Assembly in 2024 and by the Senate in 2025.<\/p>\n

Its goal: to impose an environmental surcharge of up to 10 euros (nearly $12) per item by 2030, outlaw advertising for ultra-fast fashion<\/a> purveyors and require mandatory environmental impact disclosures.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s pressure on Shein intensified after a late-2025 scandal<\/a> involving the listing of \u201cchildlike\u201d sex dolls and illegal weapons on its website\u2014just as the Chinese-founded e-tailer opened its first permanent location in Paris. Inspections by French customs of 320,000 Shein parcels at Charles de Gaulle Airport later found a 25 percent non-compliance rate<\/a>, triggering a judicial push by the French government to suspend the platform for three months.<\/p>\n

Story Continues <\/p>\n

The Paris Judicial Court ultimately rejected the suspension in December 2025\u2014a decision upheld by the Court of Appeal in March 2026\u2014ruling that a total blackout was \u201cdisproportionate\u201d because Shein took timely action in removing the illicit listings and voluntarily tightened controls.<\/p>\n

With the European Commission weighing in, however, Loi Violland is now in a state of limbo for at least the next four to six months as Paris and Brussels work to hammer out a compromise. Under the EU\u2019s notification procedure, France is currently bound by a mandatory \u201cstandstill period\u201d while it reviews the European Commission\u2019s objections and adjusts the bill\u2019s scope to address the points of contention. Other alternatives are for Paris to withdraw the law entirely or to ignore the European Commission and provoke a lawsuit from the European Court of Justice, rendering it unenforceable for French retailers.<\/p>\n

Things could go in any direction, according to Baptiste Carriere-Pradal, co-founder and director of 2B Policy, an ESG consultancy based in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrance could make several changes compared to its first draft, for instance, abandoning the idea of taking money from \u2018bad\u2019 producers to reward \u2018good\u2019 ones could be dropped,\u201d he wrote on LinkedIn. \u201cHowever, France and the EU Commission don\u2019t see eye to eye on several points regarding the EU\u2019s Digital Services Act and its enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of this hinges on what hasn\u2019t been said, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn parallel, in a move to support their application, France asked the French PRO, Refashion, in January 2026 to come forward with a proposition for eco-modulation targeting ultra-fast fashion<\/a>,\u201d Carriere-Pradal said. \u201cWhat has been proposed is not yet publicly communicated.\u00a0 As the EU Commission has stressed, the output of this work could be key for the next steps of this milestone legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, Serge Papin, France\u2019s minister for small and medium-sized businesses, declared a \u201cyear of resistance\u201d for online marketplaces like Shein because of the unfair competition they posed to French retailers.<\/p>\n

Speaking to TV station TF1, Papin said that Shein presented a \u201cdisturbance to public order\u201d through non-compliance that he described as \u201csystemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe platform that markets the products bears responsibility, and for the moment, it is not responsible for the products it sells,\u201d he said. \u201cThere are double standards: when a physical store puts products on its shelves, it is responsible for them; if it sells non-compliant products, it removes them and it is shut down.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France\u2019s so-called \u201canti-fast fashion\u201d law has hit a snag. Writing in an April 15 reaction, the European Commission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104],"tags":[211,210,1718,40191,3230,2610,234,40190,40192],"class_list":{"0":"post-74757","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brussels","8":"tag-belgium","9":"tag-brussels","10":"tag-environmental-impact","11":"tag-environmental-impacts","12":"tag-eu-single-market","13":"tag-european-commission","14":"tag-france","15":"tag-loi-violland","16":"tag-sustainability-standards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116518901935858758","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}