SALMON AND COUNTERFEITS: INVESTIGATING THE HIDDEN SIDE OF CHRISTMAS | M6 | Zone Interdite

Christmas is the number one spending period of the year.
Three hundred million gifts are exchanged, 40% of them for children…
In the frenzy of holiday shopping, the magic is real — but so are the scams that multiply every year.
At the top of the list: our iconic Christmas foods, starting with salmon, which consumer authorities have been monitoring closely.
Sold by weight, some fishmongers inject it with water to increase its price.
An overly bright orange color often reveals salmon raised in poor conditions and fed antibiotics far above French standards.
We follow the salmon supply chain all the way to Scotland, and investigate how to find truly high-quality fish.
Another category under close scrutiny — and directly affecting our children — is toys.
At Christmas markets and in shops, inspectors from the DGCCRF uncover products which, once tested in labs, are downright alarming.
Many come from China.
After years of turning a blind eye, China has finally reacted, creating an agency similar to the DGCCRF and authorizing private detectives — some of them French — to trace counterfeit goods back to fraudulent factories. Their targets: toys, of course, but also dangerous electric-scooter batteries, several of which have exploded this year in France, causing ceilings to collapse or apartments to catch fire. There are major differences in quality.
And beware of eye-catching prices on branded bags or clothing that look like great Christmas deals.
More often than not, they’re counterfeits.
Sold through e-commerce platforms, these fraudulent products now have a new hotspot: Turkey, which has become one of the world’s leading exporters of fake luxury goods.
Vinted is flooded with them — so much so that the platform has created a dedicated anti-counterfeiting unit.