Outrage after Adidas store opening
Manager’s comments denounced
• After lengthy renovations, management of Montreal’s downtown Adidas store planned to make a splash with its reopening Thursday.
The revamped boutique was going to blend “the iconic brand styles with unique Montreal vibes,” the company promised on its website.
Well, mission somewhat accomplished.
As Quebec’s premier weighed in on the “unacceptable” downplaying of French during the store’s relaunch and the head of the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste gave interviews outside the store calling for a boycott, there was no mistaking that Adidas had tapped into a distinctive Montreal vibe.
The language controversy erupted soon after a Journal de Montréal reporter attending a pre-opening media event Wednesday wrote on Twitter the proceedings were almost entirely in English.
The Journal’s Philippe Orfali reported that store manager Alexandre Des Roches practically apologized for speaking a little French.
“I’ll say a word in French to accommodate the City of Montreal and the francophone media,” Orfali quoted Des Roches as saying. A subsequent conversation between Des Roches and a French sneaker designer was in English, the paper said.
Orfali’s tweet led to swift denunciations from Quebec politicians and celebrities. Guy A. Lepage, host of the talk show Tout le monde en parle, said he would not shop there. The rapper Biz tweeted a photo of his well-worn Adidas sneakers in the garbage with a message tailored for the German company: “auf Wiedersehen.”
In the National Assembly Thursday, official Opposition Leader Jean-Francois Lisée said Premier Philippe Couillard’s lax approach to protecting the French language was responsible for “the contempt displayed yesterday by Adidas toward all the francophones of Quebec.”
Couillard replied that if the comments reported by the Journal were accurate, it was “unacceptable” on Adidas’ part. “The signal from business leaders must be clear. The language of the workplace in Quebec is French. In Quebec’s metropolis, we speak French,” Couillard said.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante and her Quebec City counterpart, Régis Labeaume, added their voices to the chorus denouncing Adidas. Plante called it a “flagrant lack of sensitivity,” while Labeaume, not known for his urban fashion sense, declared he would never shop at the Adidas boutique.
Store employees were instructed not to speak to the media, and requests for comment from Adidas’ Canadian head office were not immediately returned.
Maxime Laporte, president of the Société SaintJean Baptiste, an ardent defender of French, said the Adidas incident is the latest piece of evidence that English remains dominant in the stores of downtown Montreal.
“Still, in 2017, the language that has superior social status, the language of prestige, is English,” Laporte said. He said the fact the offending manager is a francophone himself speaks to the lingering effects of colonialism.
“We often see colonial situations that people have a tendency to switch to English,” he said. His group plans to maintain its boycott call until Adidas issues an apology.
But as the story caught fire on social media Wednesday night, sneaker enthusiasts lined up outside the store to get their hands on the new Pharrell Williams NMD shoes that sell for $340 a pair. They quickly sold out, and the store remained busy throughout the day.
One French-speaking customer, who declined to give his name, said he was not bothered by the controversy. “It’s one of my favourite stores,” he said.