Paris’ Court of Appeal rejected France’s bid to suspend Shein’s marketplace for a second time, citing proportionality — but the company still faces EU probes, parcel taxes, and a government-declared “year of resistance.”
Paris’ Court of Appeal handed Shein another legal victory on Thursday, rejecting the French government’s demand to temporarily suspend a section of the company’s website after the discovery that it was selling weapons, banned medications, and childlike sex dolls. The court ruled against the government’s bid, stating that “the harm that had justified the state’s action no longer existed.” It is the second time in four months that a French court has declined to shut down the platform — and both rulings signal something larger than a single legal dispute: Europe’s courts and governments are working from very different playbooks.
The French state initially pushed for a total ban of Shein’s site, but later walked that back to a suspension of its marketplace. Thursday’s ruling confirms the appeals court’s position: it found that blocking the marketplace completely would be “disproportionate” and infringe Shein’s freedom to conduct business. The court did, however, keep one condition firmly in place. It upheld the earlier ruling that Shein may not sell certain products on its marketplace again without adequate age-verification measures.
“The appeals court confirmed the [December] judgment in all its dispositions, and rejected the other demands presented by the State,” the court said in a statement.
Shein says it has cleaned house
Following the ruling, Shein moved quickly to position itself as a company that had already done the work. Since the findings in France, Shein no longer allows third-party sellers to list sex dolls in any of its markets, and is rolling out age-verification measures for other products, a Shein spokesperson said.
Shein said in a statement after Thursday’s ruling: “Over the last several months, we have continued to significantly reinforce our controls for both sellers and products on our marketplace, to ensure that our consumers in France can enjoy a safe and enjoyable online shopping experience.” The company said it has maintained a “close dialogue” with French and European authorities, and is engaging with the European Commission on age-verification measures “being gradually rolled out across a number of markets globally.”
The company’s swift corrective response proved legally persuasive. The appeals court noted that ISSL, the firm that manages the website, “had reacted promptly to remove the disputed products from sale and had put in place measures to monitor its products and the sellers with access to its marketplace” — effectively making the case for suspension moot.
The courts twice sided with Shein, citing the company’s swift response, which included voluntarily shutting down its marketplace in France, auditing listings, and implementing corrective measures before gradually relaunching the platform earlier this year. Meanwhile, Shein has continued to expand its physical presence in the country, opening shops-in-shop in five regional BHV department stores outside of Paris ranging from 5,400 to 11,000 square feet.
France is not backing down
The ruling does not mean France is satisfied. Following the ruling, the government said in a statement it will be “extremely vigilant” to see that Shein implements the conditions set by the court.
That vigilance has been building for months, and it extends well beyond the courtroom. Online retailers such as Shein will face a “year of resistance” in France, the country’s minister for small and medium-sized businesses Serge Papin said in February, adding that the platforms posed unfair competition to French chains. “We need to protect ourselves of course, there is unfair competition, they must respect the consumer rules (applied to French retailers),” Papin said.
Taxes are among the pressure points. A parcel tax targeting online sellers such as Shein, Temu, and Wish came into effect last month, imposing a €2 fee per product category within each shipment in a bid to slow consumption of ultra-cheap fashion and goods. The EU is set to go further: the European Union will introduce a €3 tax in the summer on small parcels which were previously exempt from tariffs in a bid to curb sales by Shein and other platforms. But enforcement gaps are already apparent. Reports suggest Shein has rerouted its air freight through Belgium, using truck deliveries for final distribution to bypass the charge.
A coalition of 12 French retail federations, alongside several big brands, have also sued Shein’s Ireland-based European subsidiary, Infinite Styles Service Co. Ltd., to stop unfair competition and ensure compliance with European product safety standards, with the aim of leveling the playing field for French retailers.
Europe’s broader reckoning with ultra-fast fashion
The French legal battles are one front in what is becoming a pan-European effort to hold digital marketplaces accountable — and to make consumers aware of the true cost of fast fashion. The European Commission opened formal proceedings against Shein under the Digital Services Act in February, citing the company’s addictive design, the lack of transparency of recommender systems, and the sale of illegal products, including child sexual abuse material.
The investigation centers on multiple troubling areas of the platform’s operations. If the investigation results in a non-compliance decision, it could result in Shein being fined up to 6 percent of its global annual turnover. Shein’s revenue reached $37 to $38 billion in 2024, meaning the financial consequences could be severe.
The EU Commission’s own executive vice president was pointed about what is at stake. “The Digital Services Act keeps shoppers safe, protects their wellbeing and empowers them with information about the algorithms they are interacting with,” said Henna Virkkunen, executive vice president for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy. “We will assess whether Shein is respecting these rules and their responsibility.”
Public sentiment in France has been unambiguous, even if the courts have been more measured. When Shein opened its first permanent store in Paris inside the historic BHV in November 2025, an online petition against the opening gathered more than 120,000 signatures. Child-protection and environmental groups criticized the brand, and dozens of protesters gathered outside the store. The national consumer watchdog, the DGCCRF, said it was “difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of the content” found on Shein’s platform, noting that the dissemination of child pornography is punishable by up to seven years behind bars and a fine of up to roughly $116,000. Since then, 20 men have been arrested across the country for purchasing the dolls.
The larger question: has fast fashion already won?
The court rulings in France raise an uncomfortable question that governments across Europe are grappling with: when a platform removes a product quickly enough, does the harm simply disappear? Judges acknowledged “serious harm to public order” linked to the sale of illegal goods, and yet still upheld the position that full suspension would be disproportionate. The legal architecture, it seems, struggles to keep pace with the speed of the very platforms it is meant to regulate.
Recent European Commission data shows that more than 90 percent of low-value parcels entering the European Union originate from China, intensifying scrutiny of cross-border e-commerce platforms. Shein’s foothold in Europe — and in France specifically — is not just a legal story; the platform has rapidly become a go-to source in France for micro-trend, low-cost fashion by leveraging technology, logistics, and a relentless product turnover to outpace traditional retailers. In the first three quarters of 2025, ultra-fast fashion platforms, including Shein, Temu and AliExpress, accounted for about 6 percent of all clothing sales in France in volume terms and 2 percent in total value.
For France, the court loss is unlikely to be the end of the story. The government has already signaled it plans to pursue legislative avenues and European-level action. A proposed law designed specifically to curb ultra-fast fashion is in progress, and Shein has incurred substantial fines in France, including a €150 million penalty in 2025 for non-compliance with data protection rules on the use of cookies.
Whether or not Shein wins in court, the regulatory pressure accumulating around it — from taxes to DSA investigations to retail coalition lawsuits — suggests the cost of doing business in Europe is rising, even for a company that has made cheap its entire brand identity.
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