a scandal which confirms that Shein “does not respect any of the minimum criteria for working with us”, declares the Caisse des Dépôts

In October, the Banque des Territoires had given up on buying the BHV premises after the announcement of the arrival of Shein. The public body denounced “a breakdown of trust between the two parties”.

The scandal of child pornography dolls sold on the Shein platform confirms that “this is an actor who does not meet any of the minimum criteria to work with us”declares Tuesday November 4 on France Inter the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations. The CDC gave up at the beginning of October to finance a BHV renovation project after the announcement of the Parisian department store’s alliance with Shein, an online sales platform regularly singled out. The opening of a Shein space at BHV is planned for Wednesday.

In October, “we realized that the operator, without our being informed, had entered into a partnership with Shein and that does not fit into our values ​​at all”, recalls the director general of the CDC, Olivier Sichel, on France Inter. The Caisse des Dépôts has “extremely strict criteria” regarding the projects it chooses to finance, such as “the impact on sustainable development” or societal impact. However, in particular “from an ecological point of view”, the BHV alliance with Shein “didn’t suit us”, underlines Olivier Sichel. Since this decision, Shein has found itself at the heart of a new scandal with the sale of child pornography dolls on its site. Which confirms the CDC in its choice to be “removed from this partnership”explains Olivier Sichel.

Caisse des Dépôts is the majority shareholder of La Poste, which entered into a partnership with the online commerce platform Temu in October. Questioned on this point, the director general of the CDC said that he “we must not make La Poste the scapegoat for these issues.” The Minister of Commerce, Serge Papin, denounced this partnership between La Poste and Temu.

“That the minister takes decisions on Temu, on Shein, on the Chinese platforms, I hope for it. I think that indeed, we have a real problem which is killing our industry, which is killing our local commerce and that strong decisions must be taken in this direction. But these are decisions which belong to the political authority, to the minister, not to the shareholder and not to the postal workers”he believes.