On the eve of Chinese-founded fast-fashion giant Shein’s first retail launch in Paris, French authorities have opened an investigation into the platform and fellow e-commerce giants Temu, AliExpress and Wish over exposing minors to sexual content, including the sale of childlike sex dolls.
The case has been referred to Paris' Office des Mineurs, the prosecution service added. The office is an arm of the French police force that oversees the protection of minors, as per the BBC.
In response, Shein announced on Monday that it would implement a total ban on all sex doll-type products and would permanently block seller accounts linked to the illegal sale of childlike dolls and enforce stricter platform controls.
Speaking to RMC radio, Shein France spokesperson Quentin Ruffat said the company would fully cooperate with authorities and share buyer details if requested: “We will comply with all judicial requests. This situation is serious, unacceptable and intolerable,” he added, noting the brand would introduce new measures to prevent recurrence.
The probe was triggered after France’s consumer watchdog, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF), reported the four e-commerce platforms to prosecutors on Sunday. The watchdog said listings discovered on Shein “left little doubt as to the child pornography nature” of the products.
The Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) said the dolls’ positioning and descriptions left “little doubt as to the child pornography nature” of the products.
AliExpress told Campaign Asia-Pacific that the listings breached its policies and were removed once detected. In a statement to Campaign Asia-Pacific, a spokesperson said: “We take this matter very seriously. Listings of this kind are against our policies and strictly prohibited under our rules. The listings in question have been removed as soon as we became aware and we work hard to ensure continued compliance across our platform. As a third-party marketplace, we require all sellers to comply with applicable laws and our platform policies. Sellers found to violate or trying to circumvent these requirements will be penalised in accordance with our rules. We also will take immediate action to remove any listings notified and identified.”
Campaign contacted Shein and the other platforms for comment. Shein did not respond by the time of publication
In the house of couture, an uninvited guest has taken a seat. And Paris is bristling
From November 5, Shein is set to open inside BHV, one of Paris’s best-known department stores, before expanding into five Galeries Lafayette locations across France.
Paris deputy Mayor Nicolas Bonnet-Oulaldj told journalists on Tuesday, “The city of Paris reaffirms that Shein is contrary to its values. “We ask the Minister of the Economy to go further than just making threats and to ban the Shein platform in France.”
Such is the strength of feeling around Shein’s arrival in France that, in late October, Galeries Lafayette issued a sharply worded statement condemning SGM’s decision to impose Shein, a brand “in contradiction with their offer and their values” on its stores.
In retaliation, SGM Tuesday ordered five of the Galeries Lafayette malls to rebrand as BHV, according to CNN affiliate BFMTV.
Frédéric Merlin, head of SGM, pushed back against criticism of the deal with Shein, pointing to its popularity with consumers.
“We’re speaking of a brand that is regularly bought by 25 million French customers, who are today considered bad people because they buy from this platform?” he said in an interview with RTL radio this week.
Critics say Shein’s ultra-cheap, disposable fashion jars with Paris’s identity as the global capital of haute couture and craftsmanship.
This is not Shein’s first clash with French regulators. In 2024, France passed a landmark law targeting ultra-fast fashion platforms such as Shein and Temu, introducing a rising environmental tax on each item sold (up to €10 by 2030) and a ban on advertising for ultra-fast fashion brands.
Between late 2024 and early 2025, Shein was fined €191 million in France over breaches ranging from cookie policy violations and misleading advertising to failing to disclose plastic microfibres in products.
The scrutiny comes as Shein switched to Hong Kong to list the company after failing to secure the green light for its London and New York IPO earlier.
The Chinese fast-fashion brand employs 16,000 people worldwide and posted an estimated $38 billion in 2024, although the firm's financial results aren't public.
