Anti-fast-fashion bill to be debated by French Senate in week of May 19

The bill on the textile industry’s environmental impact is making progress in France, over a year after being tabled in the Senate following a unanimous vote in the National Assembly, France’s Parliament.

The date for the bill’s Senate debate was postponed sine die at the start of the year, prompting widespread discontent within environmental organisations and parts of the fashion industry. News of a fresh timetable emerged on March 19, and the bill is now expected to be discussed by the Senate in the week of May 19.

The announcement was made in the National Assembly by Véronique Louwagie, the Minister in charge of trade, crafts, SMEs, and the social and community economy, answering questions by Olivia Grégoire, MP and former minister with the same remit, about the government’s initiatives to protect companies and employees in the fashion and crafts sectors.

“There are product flows increasingly coming [into France] from foreign platforms. A new model has been created, fast fashion, which has a significant environmental, social and economic impact,” said Louwagie. “Yes, we need to act in various domains. The first is Europe. France strongly supports the revision of the threshold for exemption from customs duties on low-value parcels. It’s an issue that has to do with fighting fraud. Discussions are also ongoing at EU level on the introduction of non-discriminatory management fees to finance customs services. We must act at the national level too, this is the purpose of the bill that was examined this morning in a Senate committee and which, I’m telling you know, will probably be debated by the Senate during the week of May 19. The government is pushing in this direction,” added Louwagie.

Environmental associations put pressure on the French Senate at the end of last week, depositing textile waste near the upper chamber. On the morning of March 19, the Senate’s Regional Planning and Sustainable Development committee worked on the bill that was first drafted by MPs over a year ago. Led by Sylvie Valente-Le Hir, the bill’s rapporteur in the Senate, the committee made a series of changes that were unanimously approved.
 
“The bill now comprises several other elements, including a more precise definition of fast fashion, which focuses on the breadth of range but also the fact that the prices charged do not encourage [garment] repairs,” said Louwagie, speaking to the National Assembly. Crucially, she also indicated that fast-fashion products are set to be penalised not simply on the basis of their environmental impact, but also because of the specific commercial practices of fast-fashion e-tailers. The minister’s announcement of a possible date for the bill’s discussion was met with a sustained round of applause, confirming the interest in the issue.

Eleven amendments

The Senate committee in charge of the bill has now completed its work on the text approved by the National Assembly. Eleven amendments have been adopted, out of the 25 tabled before the committee. Some amendments were jettisoned because they were considered irrelevant or simply legislative riders. Three were rejected. One concerned raising the penalty threshold for fast-fashion products. A second aimed to incorporate, in the bill’s Article 2, the notion of “social criteria based on respect for human rights,” in addition to environmental aspects. The third, still within Article 2, was an amendment that proposed inserting a paragraph aimed at awarding a bonus based on social criteria, in addition to those attributed for improved environmental performance.
 
So what were the 11 amendments adopted by the Senate committee? They did not call into question the original spirit of the law, specifying in particular the type of practices and entities that will be targeted, notably those that “facilitate, through the use of a digital interface such as a marketplace, a website, a portal or similar device, distance selling and the delivery of products” and whose strategy is based on rapid collection turnover. It was also specified that the thresholds [applied to fast fashion] will take into account the “number of new items per unit of time, the number of different items, and the short duration of their commercialisation period.” Consumers should be informed by means of warnings placed close to product prices on the platforms in questions, regarding “[consumption] restraint, reusing, repairing, and recycling products, and raising awareness about their environmental impact.”

The bill will stipulate that a contact person for fast-fashion players must be identified in France. They must be “a natural or legal person based in France, acting as a representative responsible for ensuring compliance with the obligations relating to the extended producer responsibility scheme.” The bill provides for a system of penalties and bonuses. The Senate committee notably indicated that “financial contributions will vary … based in particular on the results obtained by applying the environmental score methodology … The eco-organisation’s specifications stipulate that the additional contributions collected will chiefly be reallocated in the form of bonuses to manufacturers of those products that meet eco-design criteria for improved environmental performance.” The bill is suggesting that penalties per product could be valued at €5 in 2025, €6 in 2026, €7 in 2027, €8 in 2028, €9 in 2029, and €10 in 2030. Such increasingly higher penalties are designed to put pressure on the sector to change. A paragraph also stipulates that part of the monies collected will be used by “eco-organisations to finance collection and recycling infrastructure in non-EU countries.”

Another area covered by the Senate committee is advertising: there is to be a ban on advertising and influencer marketing for certain players. Finally, two new articles were added to the bill (articles 6 and 7), requiring the government to produce ad hoc reports. Article 6 states that “within six months of the promulgation of this law, the Government shall submit to Parliament a report examining the opportunity of extending the carbon border adjustment mechanism to textile products manufactured outside the European Union’s territory.” This means subjecting products imported into the customs territory of the European Union to a carbon emission tariff equivalent to that applied to European manufacturers producing the same items. Finally, in the same spirit, Article 7 calls for a report to take stock after one year “of mirror measures at the borders of the European internal market to impose European health, social and environmental standards on imports of textile products with fast and very fast turnover.”

Above all, the Senate committee is keen to work towards a change in approach, and has analysed “the opportunity of reversing the burden of proof at the time of the products’ entry into the European Union; it would then be the exporter’s responsibility to prove that their products have been produced in accordance with European standards.”

Given the tense global geopolitical context, especially in the field of trade relations, the debates in the French Senate, planned for May, are likely to be both intense and delicate.