From labels to Netflix, how Quebec's fight to protect French collides with US trade
Prime Minister Mark Carney instructed Canadian negotiators to walk away from trade talks in Washington on 21 August after the two sides failed to reach a deal. The breakdown centred on much broader disagreements over US tariffs, access to the Canadian market and Canada's ability to protect key industries.
But French language and culture were also among the issues raised during the negotiations.
"We were not prepared to compromise on the protection of the French language and our culture," Carney said on 22 August, adding that Washington had pushed on those issues "until the very last minute".
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer disputed Canada's account, saying French-language protections were not a US "red line".
The immediate disagreement has since eased. Last Thursday, Canada's minister responsible for US trade, Dominic LeBlanc, said Washington had withdrawn its objections over French-language labelling and the visibility of French-language content online, and had confirmed that measures promoting French and Canadian culture would not face future US trade action.
But the episode exposed a much older and politically sensitive question: why are rules protecting French in Quebec a matter for US trade officials at all?
Canada renews push to boycott US products
Tracing Canada's French language
"The promise of French in Quebec dates back to pre-Confederation, the Quebec Act of 1774," Christopher Skeete, Quebec's Minister of International Relations and La Francophonie, whose portfolio includes promoting Quebec's interests and French language and culture internationally, told RFI.
"The British Crown promised Quebecker francophones in Canada that their language and their culture would always be protected."
French-language rights have evolved considerably since then. Quebec's 1977 Charter of the French Language, known as Bill 101, made French the province's official language and established it as the normal language of government, work, education and business.
Canada has two official languages, English and French, whose equal status in federal institutions is protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Around 22 percent of Canada's population has French as its first official language spoken, with the vast majority of francophones living in Quebec and close to 1 million elsewhere in the country.
Quebec also has extensive trade ties with the United States, meaning its language rules can directly affect American companies selling goods and services in the province.
Those tensions are not new. Canada has long sought exemptions for cultural policy in trade agreements with the US, from the 1980s Canada-US Free Trade Agreement through NAFTA and its successor CUSMA. Despite US objections, those agreements allowed Canada to retain protections for its cultural industries.
Canada unveils counter-tariffs of 15-50 percent on US goods
From Bill 101 to Bill 96
Quebec strengthened its language protections with Bill 96, passed in 2022.
The US government's 2025 report on foreign trade barriers listed the law as a technical barrier to trade with Canada. It said American businesses would have to review non-French trademarks on product packaging and labelling and translate into French parts containing a "generic term" or a "description of the product".
"For instance, if you want to sell a microwave in Quebec, you have to have French instructions on how to operate the microwave," Skeete said.
The US had also raised concerns about the rules at the World Trade Organisation's Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade in 2024.
"Bill 96 is an add-on to Bill 101 to address certain gaps that we found in Bill 101 that were leading to an erosion of French in Quebec," Skeete said.
With English the majority language across North America, French "is always going to be fragile", he added.
Quebec went further with Bill 109, adopted in December 2025, bringing the protection of French into the digital sphere.
"People have a right to be presented with their content [streaming sites, Netflix, Spotify, etc.] in their francophone content," Skeete said.
The promotion of local culture on American streaming platforms "is seen as an imposition or a barrier to trade", he added.
Trump admin predicts US trade war 'devastating' for Canada
Enforcing French
The debate is not confined to governments and trade negotiators.
Benoit Dubreuil, Quebec's Commissioner of the French Language, heads an independent institution that monitors the provincial government's implementation of its Charter of the French Language.
For several years, there has been discussion in Quebec and at the national level about new laws and provisions that could further strengthen and stabilise French, he told RFI. That includes requirements for businesses to use French and, in the current trade dispute, regulation of digital platforms.
For businesses in Quebec, language rules are enforced by the Quebec Office of the French Language, or OQLF. Its officers check that businesses comply with requirements including rules on public and commercial signs, where French must be markedly predominant over text in another language.
Mathieu Cleroux, the owner and founder of Lièvre Rouge, a chalet retreat in northern Quebec, is a francophone who completed his secondary and university studies in English.
He told RFI he does not take issue with the language laws.
"A majority of my customers are francophone and being in Quebec and French [speaking] is part of my identity," he said.
Much of his public communication is in French, but he does not see the requirements as an obstacle.
"I don't see it [language laws] as a barrier to doing business."
Canadian PM 'unsurprised' by ongoing decline of French language in Quebec
Pressure to use English
For those charged with protecting French, the concern goes beyond individual rules governing businesses.
"Despite the fact that Canada is officially a bilingual country, in reality English is a much more powerful language than French," Dubreuil said.
French speakers therefore "feel pressure to use English", he added.
In 2023, the Canadian government strengthened its official languages legislation.
The Act for the Substantive Equality of Canada's Official Languages "recognised the vulnerability of the French language in the North American context and the need to take positive measures to promote the French language in key sectors," Linda Cardinal, a political scientist and professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa who specialises in French-language policy, told RFI.
For Cardinal, protecting French and culture in trade negotiations is nothing new.
"The Quebec government has always been clear on the issue," she said. "All former trade agreements with the United States included a disposition on cultural exception, meaning that language and culture are not to be part of or affected by any trade deal."