Luxury fashion brand Balenciaga has apologised after claims that Chinese shoppers were mistreated at a Parisian outlet sparked a backlash.

Balenciaga and upmarket retailer Printemps apologised on Chinese social media, where news of the incident has attracted over two million comments.

A video posted online appeared to show a Chinese customer assaulted at the Balenciaga shop inside Printemps.

Its caption read: "Boycott Balenciaga [for] discriminating against Chinese."

Citing the video, China’s state-run Global Times claimed the incident had begun after the man’s mother scolded queue jumpers while she was waiting to enter the Balenciaga outlet.

One of the queue-jumpers then pushed the woman and threatened to punch her, prompting her son to intervene, it was alleged.

The son was wrestled to the ground by the group, the Global Times reported, adding that a sales clerk then allegedly insulted the Chinese customers and told them to leave.

The hashtag #BoycottBalenciagaDiscriminatesAgainstChinese has been viewed at least 29 million times on Chinese social media platform Weibo.

In a statement in Mandarin posted on Weibo, Balenciaga said it regretted the incident and noted that security guards had acted quickly to restore calm.

"Balenciaga sincerely apologises to the customers who were present and reaffirms its strong commitment to respect equally all its customers," it said.

"We would like to extend our sincerest apologies to the Chinese customers involved in this altercation as well as to all those who were upset or inconvenienced in any way," the department store said.