The president of Quebec's language office, Louise Marchand, has resigned following a slew of embarrassing international headlines generated by a French-language inspection controversy.

Quebec's French Language Minister Diane De Courcy has announced the resignation of Louise Marchand, the head of Quebec's Office of French Language, or the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF).

The announcement follows the so-called "Pastagate" controversy that erupted recently when an overzealous language inspector told a Montreal Italian restaurant owner that there was too much Italian on his menu, and that words such as botiglia, pasta and antipasto should have a French language translation written next to them.

Marchand’s departure follows a series of news stories that have drawn considerable ridicule upon the agency — in Quebec, the rest of Canada, and abroad as well.

“These episodes had an undesired effect on the businesses, the Office personnel, the public, and Quebec in general,” said French language Minister De Courcy.

"It was a big crisis," said De Courcy. "We had 60 countries report on this issue, and we weren't all very proud about it. But at the same time, this was also an opportunity."

The language office said it launched an internal review of its protocols following the negative media coverage.

The results of the report have not been made public, but De Courcy said the office will undergo a "modernization" process, while maintaining its fundamental goal of protecting the French language in Quebec.

Further information on Quebec's Office of French Language is available at this website.

By Alex Dupont
Marketing Communications Specialist
Language Translation Inc.

See Also

• French is descended primarily from Vulgar Latin making it a Romance Language. It evolved out of the Gallo-Romance dialects of Northern France.
  OQLF defenders say its inspectors are simply doing the job politicians have asked them to do ? vigilantly enforcing Quebec?s French language law.
• President of Quebec language office resigns
  A public-relations nightmare involving pasta has pushed the Quebec government to re-examine its recipe for handling alleged violations of the province?s language law.