Shein, a Chinese e-commerce giant that has come to epitomise the ultra fast-fashion industry, shook France in mid-October by announcing it would open its first brick-and-mortar boutique in the historic BHV department store in central Paris.
Protests, petitions, lawsuits, and a broad public pushback followed. But the shop is now open to customers.
Shein had reached global fame through a potent cocktail of unbeatable prices, an endless selection of clothes, gamified online shopping and, perhaps most important, a deliberate lack of physical stores that has been crucial to keeping costs down and winning customers over. At the same time, human rights organisations, regulators and retailers have regularly accused the Chinese firm of human rights abuses, misleading advertising and unsafe or faulty products.
Shein, which could not be reached for comment at the time of publication, has previously acknowledged instances of child labour, while insisting it took prompt action to halt such practices.
The company’s spokesperson in France, Quentin Ruffat, recently said that people “should accept that Shein has become part of daily life” for tens of thousands of French citizens.
But the controversial opening of its shop in France, Shein’s largest consumer market in Europe, is also illustrative of a broader challenge: Europe’s growing vulnerability to become a dumping ground for cheap Chinese goods that threaten to undermine its already sclerotic economy.
While the textile industry isn’t typically regarded as a strategic sector compared to the likes of steel or chemicals, European Union textile imports from China have grown so rapidly over the past year that member states are no longer ruling out more protectionist measures, such as initiating a trade defence investigation.
EU imports of inexpensive Chinese goods surged 20% in both value and volume in the first half of 2025 year on year, amounting to nearly €3 billion, with garments making up approximately €2 billion of that, according to data from textile-and-apparel lobbying group Euratex.
The influx into Europe is exacerbating an already wide trade imbalance between the EU and China. In 2024, one in every three pieces of clothing sold by China made its way to the European market, while China represents a tiny fraction of those buying made-in-EU garments, according to Euratex figures. In 2024, Euratext data shows, just 13.9% of the EU’s total textile exports were shipped to East Asia, which includes China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
A turbocharged rise of Chinese fast fashion comes as garments once designed for the American market have been rerouted to Europe after US President Donald Trump introduced sweeping tariffs on China since returning to office at the start of the year.
The European Commission, meanwhile, has been pushing the bloc to reduce its reliance on Chinese goods by rejuvenating its manufacturing sector under the new Brussels mantra of competitiveness. Even so, the EU’s industrial production is on the decline compared to that of the United States and Asia.
“In Brussels we talk about reindustrialising Europe, but on the ground the opposite is happening,” Dirk Vantyghem, the director general at Euratex, told The Parliament.
The problem, he said, is that “those who comply with the rules are discouraged, whereas those — like Shein — that are using the loopholes that are out there are being rewarded.”
EU producers have to comply with a vast array of environmental and safety standards, but most products sold online by uber-cheap Chinese companies fail to meet them, according to Vantyghem. Environmental and social compliance costs vary from wastewater treatment and chemicals compliance to ensuring safe working conditions to garment workers.
Europe’s soaring hunger for hyper-affordable, made-in-China goods comes at a time when textile workshops across Southern Europe are going bust. For instance, between January and August 2025, Italian fashion production dropped by 6.6% year on year, according to Confartigianato, the largest European network of craft and small enterprises. That’s a much steeper drop than that experienced by Italian manufacturing across sectors, which fell by one percentage point.
‘A middle finger’ to France and the EU
Shein’s forceful expansion in France has sparked furore across the country, prompting an unlikely alliance among politicians, retailers, and environmental activists.
“It’s an outrage,” said Arielle Levy, founder of an association advocating for sustainable fashion practices and the force behind a petition calling for Shein to be removed from the BHV department store. At the time of writing, Levy’s petition, titled “Paris deserves better than Shein," had garnered 137,916 signatures.
“Facing the Hôtel de Ville, just steps from Notre-Dame, Shein’s arrival at the BHV is far from insignificant,” the petition reads. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, who works in the Hôtel de Ville town hall, has spoken out against Shein’s expansion, describing the company as fundamentally “at odds with the city’s environmental and social ambitions.”
“Opening a store in the middle of Paris is challenging the entire industry. It’s like pulling up your middle finger,” said Vantyghem of Euratex.
In June, the French Senate passed a bill aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the textile sector. Before becoming law, the draft bill has to go through a joint committee of deputies and senators to reconcile any differences in the text approved by the National Assembly and that greenlit by the Senate.
The legislation proposes a bonus-malus system that would impose penalties on fashion products that score very low across environmental and social responsibility metrics, with a surcharge of up to €10 per item by 2030. On top of that, fashion brands would be expected to disclose the environmental cost behind each item of clothing. The draft law also includes advertising restrictions that would hit a company like Shein, whose business model is built around aggressive marketing, particularly hard.
The idea, according to Anne‑Cécile Violland, a French member of parliament who helped draft the bill, is to narrow the gap between sustainable brands and fast fashion, ultimately discouraging customers from indulging in poor-quality pieces that benefit neither the environment nor local employment.
For Violland, there is little doubt that Schein’s newfound presence in the French capital is meant to flex the Chinese firm’s muscle in the face of impending regulation.
“Every aspect of this opening is a provocation,” said Violland, adding that the Chinese brand had initially underestimated the legislative push. But once the law passed the French Senate, Schein substantially ramped up its lobbying efforts. “When the Senate adopted it, they [Schein] went all in,” she said.
The affordability question
High on the sixth floor of the BHV department store, shoppers are now greeted by Shein’s lofty black-and-white billboard that tells visitors its “mission is to give meaning back to shopping.” But before entering the store, customers are forced to open their bags for a security inspection.
Shein’s PR blitz in France has largely revolved around one core message: as the cost-of-living crisis bites, we’re here to help. Online, Shein shoppers have long been used to finding mermaid dresses for as little as €9.37 and jeans for €13.49. While the store hasn’t been able to keep prices that low — with pieces now on sale in Paris for three times the digital price tag — many shoppers are still finding value.
“At least it’s affordable during a cost-of-living crisis and a lot more democratic and honest,” Sophia, a 30-year-old American fashion-trend forecaster, told The Parliament as she perused the store.
Like Sophia, some 45 million other customers use Shein every month across the EU, according to data provided by Shein to the European Commission.
But for critics, the affordability argument is simply misleading.
“People were buying clothes long before Shein existed,” said Violland. “Yes, there’s a cost-of-living crisis, but there are alternatives.”
Levy called Shein’s marketing campaign “a manipulation of the public opinion.”
The affordability argument is particularly hard to hear for European retailers.
“Shein gets away with a lot of things — and a lot of costs — which other European manufacturers can't get away with,” said Vantyghem, referencing the brand’s lack of compliance with the bloc’s sustainability laws. In October, Schein moved to strengthen its internal audit controls after facing a series of fines over data privacy breaches, fake discounts and greenwashing.
A group of French retailers, including Promod and Monoprix, has launched a class action suit against the company, accusing it of unfair competition. They claim that the Chinese firm has been winning over consumers through deceptive discounts and selling products that no French retailer would have been able to put on the market due to EU consumer and safety standards.
What’s the EU waiting for?
Shein’s successful business model has so far prospered thanks to a loophole that the EU is now trying to fix. Low-value parcels can enter the European single market without being charged as long as they are valued at less than €150 — a blank cheque, known as the de minimis regime, which has been crucial for companies operating without a permanent store.
After negotiations stretching for over a year, EU finance ministers agreed in November to abolish the long‑standing exemption, although real change will materialise only from 2028, when a new centralised system, the EU Customs Data Hub, will enter into force. Approximately 12 million small parcels enter the EU every day, with over 91% coming from China, according to Commission estimates.
Shein’s consumer-law violations, such as failing to prevent the sale of illegal products or ensuring the traceability of the original seller, could already make the company liable under the Digital Services Act, one of Brussels’ key laws for regulating tech platforms. But the EU and national authorities are struggling to implement it. Last year, Shein vowed to comply with the EU’s stricter DSA requirements.
Some stakeholders believe that the only way for the Commission to hit back is to grant Brussels centralised sanction and investigative power over ecommerce platforms, given that only national governments can currently impose sanctions against companies such as Shein. Member states are aware that banning digital marketplaces in select countries would not solve the problem in the long term.
For Violland, the French MP, it’s clear that the solution needs to be a pan-European one: “We won’t sort that out without coordination at the EU level."
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