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Quebec's language watchdog looking into complaints against Asian grocery store

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A large Asian grocery store has received complaints for not respecting Quebec's French language laws.

T&T Supermarket has many products from Asia and many of them do not respect Quebec’s language laws.

Quebec's language watchdog, the Office de la langue francaise (OQLF), says products must have French writing on them. At T&T, there are items with neither French nor English.

"They should follow more the rules. They don't," said a customer who walked out of T&T.

The OQLF says a language other than French is also allowed on a product as long as it’s not more prominent than French. Many items have large Asian symbols on them.

CTV News spoke with many customers who said they don’t see this as a big deal, but the OQLF says it "received complaints about the conformity of certain products that the company offers for sale as well as the language of service. An analysis is in progress."

The French-language group Imperatif Francais is not happy with what’s happening at T&T. The group's president Jean-Paul Perreault called it a question of respect.

"It’s the minimum, in our opinion," Perreault said.

He said large companies should not be given a pass.

T&T is owned by Loblaw Companies, which in a statement said: "We made every effort in order to engage with French-speaking customers, as we hired a team of translators to ensure all our communications are posted in French."

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