A contingent of French-language advocates staged a march through Montreal Tuesday, demanding that Quebec’s language watchdog crack down on businesses without French websites.
According to provincial law, any business operating in Quebec must offer a French-language version of its online property.
Protesters carried a Quebec flag and a cardboard box filled with 423 files through the streets of Montreal and delivered the complaints to L’Office Quebecois de la Langue Francaise.
The complaints related to a group of companies in the Saint-Laurent Technoparc, an industrial hub that houses more than a dozen corporations near Montreal’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport.
Many of the companies in the Technoparc have French-language websites, but some do not. In some cases, links for French pages lead to English text.
“A Francophone consumer in Montreal isn’t as well served as an Anglophone consumer in Montreal. That’s a problem,” said political scientist Jean Archambault, one of the protesters.
The group demanded that the office respond to their complaints within a month. The agency said the complaints will be analyzed, but it could not confirm what action –- if any –- would be taken.
However, a spokesperson for the language office underscored the importance of the province’s rules.
“If it’s a commercial site – everything that is commercial must be in French. It can also be in another language, but it must be in French,” said OQLF representative Jean-Pierre Le Blanc.
Quebec’s laws around language can be a divisive topic. Last fall, a Montreal cupcake shop was issued an order from the OQLF – sometimes called the “language police” -- due to chalkboard signs with English text that was the same size as French text. (The law specifies that French text must be larger.)
Proponents of the strict language rules argue the laws help preserve Quebec’s unique culture in a predominantly English-speaking country.
“So it’s a question of social cohesion, a question of integration, and a question of social peace as well,” said Societe St-Jean Baptiste president Maxime Laporte.
