French people really like to speak French and get miffed if you ask them to speak English.

[mdione@en.osm.town]

@smeg 16ya the tip Inwas given was to do the proper protocol ("good morning, mr/mrs, escuse me") and the ask if they sopke English, all that in French. It was a single phrase, and worked like ancharm all the time. At most fhey would say "non", but not get angry at you.

[remi@urbanists.social]

@MeiLin @Gillinger @ploum @smeg as a born and raised Parisian (really rare these days) of 40+ odd years: yes to all of the above.

The French are bad, the Parisians are worse. That's what we do best! 🌈

(seriously though: more and more French people have semi-adequate mastery of English, esp millennials and younger. Still not as good as other EU countries, but it's improving. It used to be embarrassingly bad. Now it's just bad.)

[allpoints@mstdn.social]

@jimfl @smeg popped in to say the same thing. While they don't outright say it, I'm pretty sure they're thinking, "For the love of $deity, please stop doing that to our language!"