Originally Posted by
Ber2dca
If you put Germans, Swedes, Italians, Dutch, Polish, Greeks, Serbs, Chinese and Japanese in a room, they'll typically quite happily accept English as the language to use. This cannot be assumed with the French. Institutionally and culturally, the French never bought into the general premise of English as the current era's lingua franca. I think this is especially obvious when you interact with institutions that bear the hallmarks of French officialdom (one of which is Air France). They would probably be more concerned if their cabin crew were too eager to speak English (an affront to French national prestige).
But I've never heard a French person complain that the crew didn't announce in French on a plane in North America.
In fact, IME the whole "French language arrogance" meme is an obsolescence from the 1960's. I speak beginner-level conversational French, will never be mistaken for a Frenchman, and have only had positive reactions - or a switch to English - to my (admittedly pathetic) attempts at speaking French. But then again I don't ridicule the French when they butcher English either.