French authorities have threatened to block Chinese online store if it does not remove sex dolls with “childlike” features from its website.
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said descriptions for the products on the Shein website “make it difficult to doubt the child pornographic nature of the content.”
The French daily newspaper Le Parisien said the product in question — an 80 centimeter (30 inch) tall doll holding a teddy bear — was accompanied by an explicitly sexual description on the Shein website.
The consumer watchdog said it had turned the case over to prosecutors.
‘Boundaries have been crossed’
French Economy Minister Robert Lescure on Monday said “boundaries have been crossed” before announcing he would seek to have Shein banned from doing business in if similar incidents occur in the future.
The DGCCRF also noted that Shein sells other pornographic products, including adult-sized sex dolls, without effective age-filtering measures to prevent “minors or sensitive audiences from accessing such pornographic content.”
“We are taking this situation extremely seriously,” said Shein’s France spokesperson Quentin Ruffat in a statement on X. “This type of content is completely unacceptable and goes against all the values we stand by.”
He said “immediate” measures would be taken to rectify the situation.
Shein has already paid out hundreds of thousands of euros in French fines this year
Lescure said going as far as to block as service was a measure taken in extreme cases.
“This is provided for by law in cases involving terrorism, drug trafficking, or child pornographic materials, the government has the right to request that access to the French market be prohibited,” the economy minister said.
French laws dictate that the company must remove illegal content from its website within 24 hours or else internet providers can be ordered to block access to the site as well as potentially delisting it.
Shein has previously been forced to pay fines in France for failing to comply with online cookie legislation, false advertising, misleading information and failing to declare the presence of plastic microfibers in its products. In 2025, Shein has paid out a total of €191 million ($220 million) in fines to French authorities.
The company, which has become a global leader in , is also days away from opening its first brick-and-mortar store in central Paris. which has sparked protest and outrage.
Edited by: Zac Crellin
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