With the French and European elections happening in June, French Republicans are trying to sway voters by targeting Shein and its production practices. Some are taking to TikTok to promote the most recent bill dubbed the “fast fashion tax”.
The proposed legislation, called “loi 2268”, which was passed by the center-right political party Horizona through the lower Assembly on March 14, now has to go through the French Senate next spring. It was promoted by Antoine Vermorel-Marques, right-wing MP, in a March 14 video on TikTok. On the platform, he parodies fast fashion haul videos while promoting his political proposals.
The legislation works through a carrot-and-stick principle, or bonus-malus, which rewards more durable, sustainable apparel items and taxes carbon-heavy ones with a lack of transparency. It links brands’ financial contributions based on existing extended producer responsibility policies to the number of items they add to their e-commerce site each day. Under EPR, which has been in place in France since January 2022, brands are responsible for their supply chains.
According to the bill, brands with over a thousand new items added to their site per day will face modulated financial contributions. Additionally, it imposes a €5 penalty per product for those exceeding the thousand-model daily threshold, with an aim to curb the environmental impact. This would rise to €10 per item starting 2030, though the fee cannot exceed 50% of the item’s price.
The bill could also remove the 20% cap on brands’ bonuses or penalties — which are government-forced, according to their carbon impact and sustainability measures — based on their number of new daily products. In other words, if brands produce less per day, they may get better government incentives. The result would be a more flexible, yet potentially stricter financial adjustment to encourage companies to limit their new releases, aligning their operations more closely with French environmental sustainability goals.
Shein is attempting to distance itself from fast fashion, even while adding over a thousand items to its site every day. “By testing and producing new products in small initial batches of 100 to 200 items, we gather and evaluate customer feedback in real-time and restock only the products that our consumers truly want,” said a Shein spokesperson. “This strategy avoids the pitfalls of overproduction and dramatically reduces waste compared to the traditional fast fashion model.”
France is waging a battle against fast fashion giants Temu and Shein across multiple fronts coming up to the election. On March 4, Christophe Béchu, minister of ecological transition and territorial cohesion, said the fast fashion issue is set to be addressed in several ways in France. This includes legislative measures banning ads and influencer promotions for such brands and mandatory messaging on brand websites to highlight environmental impacts.
The announcement by Béchu also revisits environmental labeling for transparency by promoting French textiles through government incentives for brands. Additionally, it supports an international effort to ban textile waste exports to countries without sustainable management, emphasizing national action without waiting for broader European agreement.
However, many experts agree that the timing of the bill is worth noting, and they caution against optimistic regulation adoption.
“The Ministry of Environment got in very hot water this year with the farmers’ revolt,” said Francois Souchet, managing director of sustainability advisory company Swanstant. “Fast fashion is an easy target for political recuperation. I am fairly skeptical the bill will pass because of the number of uncertainties with the details. There is also a potential misalignment with European agendas by duplicating legal requirements.”
“It feels almost like there is a competition between some parties in France, the E.U. and the U.S. to see who will introduce legislation first. One can’t help but wonder whether some of this may have more to do with prospective electoral campaigns than considered environmental policy,” said Veronica Bates Kassatly, analyst in sustainable fashion.
In Brussels earlier this month, discussions by the European Fashion Alliance and the Fédération Française du Prêt à Porter Féminin also focused on preserving European manufacturing and taking back control of French fashion.
Experts say this rise in French and European protectionism is also driving older fast fashion brands to support legislation. “The advent of this new fashion model is causing more mainline brands like H&M and Zara to be more engaged in the possibility of legislation, which is ironic, because they haven’t been terribly supportive until now,” said Kenneth Pucker, professor of the practice at the Tufts Fletcher School and advisory director at private equity firm Berkshire Partners. “Now that they’re being undercut by brands that are doing even less on many [sustainability] fronts, they’re becoming more supportive because they’re losing market share.”
