Stop fast fashion
Activists have been campaigning for years to regulate the fashion industry. ActionAid France, alongside the coalition Stop Fast Fashion regularly call on French brands to ensure decent wages and put an end to gender-based violence in their supply chains.
There has been some success, for example, in October 2024, the coalition put pressure on French companies Decathlon, Kiabi and Carrefour to put an end to union repression at their suppliers in Bangladesh. However, poor practice continues:
“Whether we’re talking about fast fashion or ultra-fast fashion, the business model remains the same: a relentless race toward ever-lower production costs and unsustainable overproduction. This system can only exist at the expense of the environment and workers’ fundamental rights. It is imperative that all industry stakeholders thoroughly rethink their business model. This law represents a real opportunity to support them in this necessary transition.”
Valeria Rodriguez, Director of Advocacy at Max Havelaar France, member of the coalition Stop Fast Fashion (in the common press release of March 2025)
Collaborative work between environmental organisations and Stop Fast Fashion has engaged over 2000 people in demonstrations, petitions, and other initiatives to raise awareness among the public and policymakers, resulting in a draft bill being tabled in the National Assembly and passed on 14 March 2024.
The event pictured on the 14th March was part of a campaign to strengthen the bill. Unfortunately, whilst it was examined, under pressure from the fashion industry, the term “fast fashion”, which applied to an entire sector, was replaced by “ultra-express fashion”, limiting the scope of the law to online retail platforms such as SHEIN and Temu. This is being challenged by the European Commission which has questioned its compliance with European law and discussions were still ongoing in April 2026.
The campaign continues; an investigation published in July 2025 which looks at the production methods of the SHEIN brand, thanks to the painstaking research carried out by ActionAid US partner China Labor Watch, has highlighted the urgent need for legislation to ensure that SHEIN respects human rights, and also other clothing brands.
Our report on SHEIN and the practices of the fashion industry has been picked up by numerous French media outlets and on social media.
In November 2025, in order to circumvent the forthcoming legislation - which, for the time being, only targets online-only retailers without physical shops - the brand SHEIN announced the opening of several shops in France.
On November 27, 2025, on the eve of Black Friday, the Stop Fast Fashion coalition projected images in several locations across Paris of the workers exploited to produce the clothing sold in massive quantities by fast-fashion retailers.
Our Stop Fast Fashion coalition has carried out several communication campaigns to denounce the opening of SHEIN shops in France and keep the spotlight on the proposed legislation: social media posts, press releases, video projections on the façades of shopping streets in Paris, and the distribution of leaflets outside the new shop.
The struggle continues.
