PARIS — Economy Minister Roland Lescure warned Monday he could stop Shein from selling its products of France after a consumer watchdog report accused the Chinese-founded fast-fashion platform of selling “sex dolls with childlike appearances.”
“For terrorist acts, drug trafficking and child pornography, the government has the right to request banning access to the French market,” Lescure said. “These horrible items are illegal.”
Over the weekend, France’s Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) issued a statement alleging that it had “found that the e-commerce site SHEIN was selling child-like sex dolls.”
“Their description and categorization on the site leave little doubt as to the child pornographic nature of the content,” the statement added.
Shein did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment.
Lescure said that he had filed a legal report on this matter and asked France’s digital regulator Arcom, which is responsible for regulating “very large” platforms like Shein under the European Digital Services Act, to look into the matter.
France’s High Commissioner for Youth, Sarah El-Haïry, said Sunday that she would convene “all major platforms” to understand how such products are put on the market.
In 2021, then-Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire order popular search engines and mobile app stores to delist another online marketplace, Wish, after several reports from the DGCCRF. Wish was reauthorized a year later.
This article was first published by POLITICO in French and translated by Victor Goury-Laffont.
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