That's not a silly example and it gets the point across fine and I agree with this. However, if the law simply stated that both french and english must be present then that is fine and I agree and would support that 100%. But the law contains all sorts of silly criteria like; the french has to be first, the letter size of the english can only be 1/3 of the french, and the kicker...it's OK if english is excluded as long as french isn't. This, IMHO, isn't french preservation, it's anti-english by a seperatist government.

>What about a customer who doesn't understand a word of english who go to a store to buy an item. He have to go to that store for whatever reason (it's the only store in town that sell the item, it have a cheaper price, etc.) A sign tell the customer that all black cloths are half price and is written in english only. The customer won't be able to read the banner and won't benefit from the sale, at the benefit of the store.
>
>This is maybe a silly example, but I guess that you can see the picture. So the law about french signs have it place, IMHO.
>
>Don't forget that we are a small market in North America. If it was not for this law, I'm sure that many international companies will not bother translating their signs for us.

---

>The law is unacceptable, IMHO, because it serves no purpose except to meddle in the way private citizens conduct business. If I own a business in Quebec and I use only english signs, that should be my business, and if it causes me to lose some french speaking customers, that is my problem and doesn't require government interference. I'm sure the government could find better things to focus on, and judging by the state of the state of the Quebec governments's financial situation, they better.