The French government has said it will suspend the fast-paced shopping website Shein amid the sale of baby-like items.
The announcement came as shein opened its first brick-and-mortar store in Paris amid a heavy police presence.
“On the instructions of the Prime Minister, the government began to suspend Shein for the time needed by the public authorities Sébastien Lecornu, said. “An initial review will be carried out by the ministers in the next 48 hours.”
A Shein spokesperson told Reuters that the company intends to immediately consult with authorities on the suspension.
In fact, the fast-fashion chain says it has suspended products from third-party sellers in France. A source close to this matter told the evening in France that this announcement is not related to the government’s action against the Online Platform.
The discovery of child-like sex toys on Shein’s website prompted a political outcry in France.
The Office of the PARI Prosecutors has opened investigations against Shein, as well as the rivals of the online sellers aliexpress, temu and want, for the sale of sex dolls.
Shein, which was founded in China in 2012 but is now based in Singapore, pledged to cooperate with French authorities and announced that all sex dolls would be banned.
Hours before the doors of the New Paris Store opened on Wednesday, shoppers started outside the BHV department store, opposite the prospective clothes, often making thousands of miles away. They are unknown to the protesters, politicians and riot police.
“I have € 200 a month to spend on clothes. By me buying 50 T-shirts from Shein or I can buy three t-shirts made in France journalists.
His comments caused a stir in the Gulf among buyers to renew a bargain and fierce objections to the collaboration of BHV with Shein in the World of Haute Couture.
Fréderic Merlin, the owner of BHV, says he wants to create “a buzz” around the launch.
Moments before the closing of the Shein shop on the sixth floor of the department store, he told the crowd that he was proud of “the beginning of a new world of e-commerce and real shopping.
Earlier, he admitted that the sex scandal that caused the scandal caused him to briefly have second thoughts.
“I thought about ending our relationship [with Shein]but it is the strong decision and reaction of the president of Shein that inspires me to continue, “Merlin told French television and quit sex games.” Its Products [in the store] labeled as shein and made in Shein in Shein factories,” instead of third parties, Merlin told French television.
Outside the BHV, those johostling to get early bird tickets to enter the shop first, seem usually not crurburbed by the queue or the police.
Melanie, 40, gets a day job at a medical supplies supplier going shopping for cheap clothes.
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“We were told that we had to buy ‘made in France’, but where things in other stores cost twice as much for €4 that cost €4.
Béatrice, 62, a retired elderly care assistant, barely had much longer.
“I ordered hundreds of euros in items from Shein Online, including this…” he said, modeling his counter coat.
“It’s all there…whatever they are [protesters] Do or say, I’m here to shop and I go and buy whatever I find. “
Others in the back queue listened and joined in.
Around the corner from the queue, Emmanuel Grégoire, a Deputy Paris Mayor and now a socialist MP, found himself in the middle of a media scrone with a faulty microphone.
He says the issue is bigger than shopping and is an existential threat to French society. “What is the reason for this morning of this opening is more than a commercial controversy; it is a social choice and a battle for the future that we want to pass on to our children,” he said.
“On the one hand, the empire of destruction and dehumanization; on the other, a world based on respect, knowledge, and responsibility. We choose the latter.”
Seven department stores elsewhere in France, managed by the same company as BHV but trading as Galeries Lafayette, have been ordered to change their name if they go ahead with plans to open Shein outlets in stores in Dijon, Reims, Le Mans, Grenoble, Angers, Orléans and Limoges.
Dorine Bregman, the Deputy Mayor of the Paris Center Ardonesement that includes BHV, said she is against the company’s human exploitation, ecological and economic grounds.
“This model of ultra-fast fashion, based on overproduction, aggressive marketing and exploitation, is profoundly against our values and has no place in the heart of Paris and least of all in a place as historic as BHV,” she said.
AFP and Reuters contributed to this report