Excuses me : who´s xenophobic here ? The French for insisting to speak their own language when foreigners are flying in their airspace, or pilots who like to kept in the closed loop and do not speak French ?!?!?
It is not that I do not trust ATC, but everybody can make a mistake and without a closed loop there is no way for me to detect that.
As for the people who think that we are just bashing some country for the sake of just bashing them; they probably have not flown too much in the countries mentioned.
If you don´t believe me, come and fly out of Basel (French ATC) for a week or so.
Uhhh… Crossair 123….uhhhhh……..stand by….I yuhhhhhh….cull yu bick
Uhhhhh…..roger Crossair 123…..uhhhhh….say agen ?
PLEASE, when will these people ever learn ?!?
As for AF, you would expect that the pilot flying long haul would speak better English ! I frequently heard AF stumble across frequencies in KMIA and, believe me, it was not a pretty sound...