(Yicai) March 22 -- France’s recently approved fast fashion bill, which aims to curb the growth in popularity of low-cost fashion items with short life cycles, is mainly targeting Chinese e-commerce retailers, according to some experts.

The simultaneous appearance of this bill and the rapid growth in Europe of Chinese fast fashion retailer Shein is not a coincidence, Robert Mckay, an analyst at the Blue Lotus Research Institute, told Yicai. The definition of fast fashion excludes French fashion retailer Kiabi and sporting goods retailer Decathlon, Mckay added.

On March 14, the lower house of the French parliament approved a fast fashion bill targeting retailers bringing more than 1,000 new items a day to reduce the textile industry’s environmental impact. From next year, France will introduce a EUR5 (USD5.42) ecological footprint surcharge on each item sold by retailers bringing more than 1,000 new items a day. The surcharge will be doubled by 2030. The bill still pends the approval of the upper house of the French parliament. 

This policy mainly reflects conservative, anti-China, and protectionist attitudes rather than the environmental protection and safeguarding the young generations goals, said Elizabeth Cline, a professor teaching the ‘Fashion Policy and the Politics of Government Action and Consumerism and Sustainability’ course at Columbia University.

The threshold of 1,000 items was chosen to exclude some lower-capacity fast fashion brands such as Zara, Zhao Yongsheng, director of the French economy research center at the University of International Business and Economics, told Yicai. The statement saying that low prices stimulate consumption actually distorts the relationship between supply and demand, Zhao added.

The bill will not have any positive impact on the economy but will impose greater burdens on ordinary French people, Zhao noted. The best solution for France would be opening the market and sharing the benefits and interests with China, he pointed out.

Chinese companies should establish environmental, social, and governance compliance systems aligned with related European Union laws, said Wang Liang, a lawyer at Shanghai-based Allbright Law Offices.

Shein’s flexible and on-demand supply model can hugely reduce the risk of wasting inventory of traditional garment makers, the Chinese fast fashion retailer said. The bill will further hike the pressure of living costs after French consumers were impacted by an inflation crisis, it added.

Editor: Futura Costaglione