Bill 96 and Your Website: French First Without Sacrificing English

Since Bill 96 received royal assent on June 1, several clients have asked me whether their website is still compliant, especially the ones running an English version alongside their French site. The good news, for a site built the right way from the start, is that the core principle has not moved much: French has to remain the default language a visitor lands on. What changes is how strictly that gets checked, and which grey areas just closed. Here is what I walk through with clients on their own sites when this question comes up, and what this article deliberately does not cover.

What does Bill 96 actually change for a small-business website?

Bill 96 amends the Charter of the French Language, and the original Charter already required that a commercial document aimed at the Quebec public, including a website, be available in French. So this is not a brand-new obligation appearing out of nowhere. What Bill 96 tightens is a set of related rules: business names, public signage and adhesion contracts are now covered more strictly, with transition periods spread over one to three years depending on the provision. For a brochure site or an online store, the central question is the same one that applied before June 1: a visitor landing on your site has to be able to do everything in French, from the first click through to checkout.

Does French have to be available even if you already have an English version?

Yes, and this is the piece I see mishandled most often. Having an English version is never the problem. The problem shows up when the English version is more complete, more current, or easier to find than the French one: a menu that defaults to English, a product page that got translated into English but never into French, or a contact form that only exists in English. Section 52 of the Charter, as amended by Bill 96, spells this out for commercial publications, websites included: if a version in another language is offered, the French version has to be accessible "under conditions at least as favourable" (full text on LégisQuébec). In practice, every page, every form and every call-to-action button on your English site needs a French counterpart, not just your homepage.

What does French first mean for a site that is already bilingual?

For a site built with a real bilingual structure, the kind we build at SIB (French at the domain root, English under /en/, each page paired to its twin with an hreflang tag), the principle is already in place: French is the default version, the one a visitor with no declared language preference lands on, and English is a chosen option rather than an automatic shortcut. That is very different from an auto-translate widget dropped on top of an existing English site, where French stays a surface layer that translates visible text but leaves URLs, metadata and sometimes even certain forms in English. Our website design service builds every page pair as two complete, standalone versions rather than a translation sitting on top of the original. That is the difference between meeting the spirit of the Charter and just showing an "FR" toggle in the corner of the screen. It also makes for better user experience (UX) for a Quebec visitor, who then browses a version built for them instead of a translation that keeps the structure and habits of an English site.

What does this article deliberately leave out?

Three areas I am not covering here because they go beyond website structure and touch specific legal documents: adhesion contracts (the ones a customer signs without negotiating, like an online subscription agreement), invoices and formal business documents, and product labelling if you sell a physical good. Each of those has its own rules under Bill 96, with requirements about the exact wording of a document rather than just how a web page presents it, and some of them overlap with federal labelling law. If you sell online or if customers sign anything through your site, those are questions for a lawyer, or for the text of the law and the Office québécois de la langue française's own guidance, not something to settle from a blog post.

How do you check whether your site already meets this?

Here is the check I run with a client who asks whether their site is fine:

1. Open your site logged out and with no browsing history, to see which language your server or Google shows by default. For a Quebec visitor, French should generally come up first, not a version picker that quietly defaults to English until someone clicks through.
2. Compare page counts between the French and English versions. A big gap, say a blog section or a service page that only exists in English, is the first thing to fix.
3. Test every form (contact, quote request, newsletter signup) in both languages. A form that only exists in English, even on an otherwise bilingual site, is a common gap I find on sites clients thought were already covered.
4. Check your call-to-action buttons and navigation menu. The French labels need to be complete, not a word-for-word translation that reads awkwardly or drops a recognized Quebec French term.
5. Look for an auto-translate widget layered on top of your site (often a small icon in the corner) instead of a real French page that was built and proofread by a person. That kind of quick fix becomes a problem the moment a sentence comes out half-translated or leaves a stray English word in French text.

What if your site only has one version, or just an auto-translate layer?

If your site only exists in English, the priority is building a real French version, not bolting on a translation widget as a stopgap. A widget can cover you for a very short stretch, but it does not fix the underlying issue: the displayed content is still machine-generated with no human review, it can contain errors that hurt your credibility with Quebec customers, and these tools also have real limits for indexing and search visibility. For a small business selling mostly in Quebec, a properly built French version stays the version most of your potential customers prefer to read, and often the one that converts best.

This article explains the general principle and applies it to website structure, but it is not legal advice for your specific situation, especially if your business touches manufacturing, retail sale, or standard-form contracts. If you want your site's structure reviewed to confirm French is genuinely the default there, that is the kind of audit we run before starting a redesign.

Drafted with AI assistance, checked and published by Marven Salgado.