MONTREAL—The president of Telus Quebec is apologizing to francophones after one of the telecom company’s Twitter handles posted a series of tweets that were horrendously translated and widely ridiculed.

Francois Gratton released a statement today apologizing to Quebecers and saying the tweets should never have been posted.

On Tuesday, internet denizens began re-tweeting messages from the Telus Fund Twitter handle that were so badly translated they were barely legible.

One of the Tweets read: “Take a deep breath, crush yourself, go kill him.”

Gratton says the Telus Fund is an independent non-profit company funded by Telus and tasked with producing local content.

He says its Twitter handle was managed by an external agency that is no longer working for the telecom company.

Twitter users had fun with the messages, sharing them widely and ridiculing the company.

Gratton says the company didn’t do its job to ensure all of the entities it works with published content that respects the French language.

Read more about: