Why the anti-fast-fashion law is delayed
One year after the unanimous vote on the anti-fast-fashion bill by the deputies, it is still not before the Senate. It was not a priority for the government, and disposable fashion brands tried to slow down the process.
Update: As of March 14, 2025, Deputy Anne-Cécile Violland announced that the law would be included in the Senate calendar. According to the Minister Delegate for Trade, Véronique Louwagie, it should be examined by the Senate "before the summer."This is a worrying disappearance. One year after its unanimous adoption by the deputies, the bill aimed at reducing the environmental impact of the textile industry — known as "anti-fast-fashion" — has not yet been submitted to the senators. The text provides for fines to penalize extremely polluting products, to reward virtuous companies, and to ban advertising for "ultra-fast-fashion." While the Senate was supposed to examine it starting on March 26, the bill is not on the agenda and the government has not included it in the order of the day at the Palais Bourbon. Where has it gone?
This delay is due to multiple reasons, including the government's timidity and the lobbying of "disposable fashion" brands like Shein, which has hired former political figures such as Christophe Castaner.
The Stop Fast Fashion coalition, which includes Friends of the Earth, Emmaüs France, and six other NGOs, is determined to get it out of the drawers. They deposited 10 tons of textile waste in front of the Senate on the morning of Friday, March 14. "We need a strong image to call on the authorities, this law, which would be a world first, would allow us to combat a harmful production system, both for the health of workers and the environment," says Tarek Daher, General Delegate of Emmaüs France. He reminds that "with 150 billion garments produced each year, the global textile industry accounts for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than air and maritime traffic combined."
Shein mobilizes its networks
The text, proposed by the deputy (Horizons) Anne-Cécile Violland and supported by Christophe Béchu and then Agnès Pannier-Runacher — the current Minister of Ecological Transition — seemed to have consensus. "It's a rollercoaster, the examination by the deputies went very quickly, but the dissolution of the National Assembly and then the fall of the Barnier government slowed down the process," notes Tarek Daher.
According to Jacques Fernique, the ecologist senator from Haut-Rhin, it was mainly "at the level of Matignon" that things got stuck. François Bayrou believes that the law would not offer political gain because it would only interest Parisian hipsters. After a ministerial meeting on Wednesday, March 12, the Prime Minister would have changed his mind. "The situation is looking better; if all goes well, the anti-fast-fashion bill should be on the Senate agenda by the end of May, the goal is for it to be voted on before summer," the senator specifies.
The delay in the schedule may also be linked to the pressures from the "fast-fashion" industry. We have seen Christophe Castaner (Interior Minister from 2018 to 2020), who was hired by Shein, defend the brand in the media, although he denies being hired to do lobbying.
In January, the former minister, for example, opposed the creation of a tax aimed at slowing down Shein. According to him, "we are inventing a VAT on the products of the poorest." An initiative he considers "pretty disgusting."
The Chinese giant also recruited Nicole Guedj (Secretary of State for the Rights of Victims under the presidency of Jacques Chirac) and the former president of the French Federation of Insurance, Bernard Spitz, in December 2024. Their positions: advisors to the corporate social responsibility committee of Shein.
The specialized second-hand media cm-cm revealed that the Chinese company also contacted several deputies during the examination of the text in March 2024, proposing a meeting with the brand's public affairs director as part of the debates on "fast-fashion."
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The tightrope act of French brands
Shein is not the only group keeping an eye on the proposed law. Several French brands have an interest in slowing down the adoption process. Objective: to reduce the scope of application. "Initially, the text was supposed to target foreign ultra-fast fashion brands like Shein or Temu," says Pierre Condamine, campaign manager for overproduction at Friends of the Earth. "But the law could also concern French brands like Decathlon or Kiabi." It's a tightrope act: ensuring that the law is severe for foreign giants but not applying to the French sector.
To determine who will be targeted, everything will depend on the threshold for the number of references proposed by brands on sites each day. While Shein would propose 8,000 new references per day, according to its detractors, it is difficult to know the number for Decathlon, for example. "The Stop Fast-Fashion Coalition advocates for a threshold of 10,000 references per year that should be directly set in the law and not in a decree to avoid the ambition being reduced later," says Pierre Condamine.
Second element that concerns the French clothing sector: the implementation of a bonus-malus system based on textile environmental disclosure. Financial penalties will be applied to clothing with a high environmental impact. This bonus will be calculated based on several criteria such as greenhouse gas emissions and the water consumption necessary for the production of the clothing, as well as its durability. This includes the number of items marketed, the average duration of marketing for a piece, or even encouraging the consumer to repair and take care of the product.
Finally, another sector of the fashion industry that does not want the anti-fast-fashion law to be too severe on Shein and Temu is the luxury sector, according to Pierre Condamine: "It can be assumed that luxury groups like LVMH, which have many customers in China, do not want to see retaliatory measures from China against their products."