French Senate addresses the challenge of curbing the rise of ‘fast fashion’

Paris - After considerable time in Parliament, a bill to curb ‘fast fashion’ was reviewed in the French Senate. The Senate aimed to legislate against this ‘short-lived’ or ‘disposable’ fashion shipped at discounted prices from China, with giants Shein and Temu in its sights.

Inexpensive, of poor quality, easy to order, often highly polluting and constantly renewed, these garments, which saturate the market and compete with established players in the textile industry, faced potential regulation of their influx into France.

This was the subject of the text reviewed in the evening at the upper house. Championed by Horizons MP Anne-Cécile Violland, the bill to ‘reduce the environmental impact of the textile industry’ had languished for over a year on the Senate's desk, following its adoption in March 2024 by the National Assembly.

The phenomenon itself did not stop: between 2010 and 2023, the number of garments placed on the market in France increased from 2.3 billion to 3.2 billion; more than 48 garments per inhabitant were placed on the market each year in France and 35 were discarded every second in the country, according to Ademe, the French Environment and Energy Management Agency.

“Today, these giants of ultra fast fashion are invading the market without any control. We must establish rules, hit them as best as possible and as hard as possible,” Sylvie Valente Le Hir, the Les Républicains senator in charge of reporting the text to the Senate, told AFP.

Targeting ‘ultra’ fast fashion

Among the key measures was the establishment in law of a definition of ‘fast fashion’, with criteria based on the volumes manufactured, the speed of collection renewal, the limited ‘lifespan’ of products and the ‘low incentive’ to repair them. The targeted companies would then have obligations such as raising consumer awareness of the ‘environmental impact’ of their clothing.

The bill also provided for enhanced sanctions for these platforms through a revised ‘bonus-malus’ system taking into account the ‘environmental costs’ of excessive production.

On this mechanism, a divergence seemed to appear between the National Assembly and the Senate. The MPs wished to link these penalties to the ‘environmental labelling’ of products, a recent rating method. But the Senate, in agreement with the government, removed this reference in committee, preferring criteria related to ‘sustainability’ and ‘commercial practices’ specific to these platforms.

A new draft aimed to target more specifically the ‘ultra fast fashion’ of Asian companies Shein and Temu, while preserving other European or French companies that could have been affected by the text voted on in the Assembly.

“The idea is to target outrageous models,” the Ministry of Ecological Transition acknowledged. “This is the case with ultra fast fashion because the number of references is out of all proportion to what we might call simply fast fashion.”

Advertising

This refocusing of the text worried the Stop Fast Fashion coalition, which brought together 14 environmental and human rights associations, including Emmaus, France Nature Environnement, Friends of the Earth and Zero Waste. For them, the initiative could therefore “become nothing more than an empty shell, with no dissuasive effect”.

Another sign that the debate would be closely scrutinised was that two associations – Friends of the Earth and the Multinationals Observatory – increased the pressure on Shein in recent days by asking the High Authority for Transparency in Public Life (HATVP) to “exercise its right of control” over the company's lobbying activities, accusing the giant, founded in China but based in Singapore, of “irregularities”.

“I hope that my colleagues will have the capacity to push back against the lobbies,” said Socialist senator Nicole Bonnefoy, alarmed by a “current trend in Parliament which gives pride of place to environmental regressions”.

Discussions in the chamber also revolved around the banning of advertising for ‘fast fashion’ companies. The Senate majority, a right-centrist alliance, opposed it on the grounds that it would restrict the ‘freedom to do business’. But the government was in favour and attempted to reinstate this ban, supported by the left.