On Monday, French authorities threatened to ban the online store Shein due to the appearance of a sex toy with “childlike” features on its website.
The French consumer rights protection agency stated that the description of such products on Shein’s website “makes it difficult to doubt the child pornography nature of their content”.
The French daily newspaper Le Parisien reported that the product in question – an 80 centimeter (30 inch) tall doll holding a teddy bear – had explicit sexual implications in its description on the Shein website.
Shein issued a statement late on Monday announcing a “complete ban on the sale of sex toy products” and removed the previous list of such products.
The Paris prosecutor’s office stated that it has launched an investigation into Shein and its competitors AliExpress, Temu, and Wish for selling sex dolls.
On Tuesday, the e-commerce giant promised to “fully cooperate” with the French authorities’ investigation.
We will maintain complete transparency with the authorities. If they ask us to do so, we will comply, “Quentin Rufat, the French spokesperson for the company, told RMC radio.
Lufat said, “We will take necessary measures to ensure that such incidents do not happen again.” He also added that what happened was “serious, unacceptable, and intolerable in nature.
The boundary has been crossed
Before Shein announced the ban on the sale of sex dolls, French Economy Minister Robert Lescour said on Monday that “the boundaries have been crossed” and added that if similar incidents occur in the future, he will seek to ban Shein from conducting business in France.
The French consumer rights protection agency also pointed out that Shein sells other pornographic products, including adult sized sex dolls, but does not have effective age filtering measures to prevent “minors or sensitive groups from accessing such pornographic content”.
We attach great importance to this matter. This kind of content is completely unacceptable and goes against all the values we uphold, “Rufat said in a statement on the X website
He stated that immediate measures will be taken to rectify this situation.
Leskur stated that measures to block services are only taken in extreme circumstances.
The law stipulates that in cases involving terrorism, drug trafficking, or child pornography, the government has the right to demand a ban on entering the French market, “said the Minister of Economy.
French law stipulates that the company must delete illegal content from its website within 24 hours, otherwise the Internet service provider may be ordered to block access to the website, or even remove it from the website.
Shein has previously been fined for violating French internet cookie regulations, false advertising, providing misleading information, and failing to indicate the presence of plastic microfibers in products. As of 2025, Shein has paid a total of 191 million euros (approximately 220 million US dollars) in fines to the French authorities.
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