Junior man , you are of course right regarding " situation awareness" as a whole.
I realise my statement can be understood differently of what I meant :
I should have written : " Determining the position of other aircraft based on R/Tto obain situation awareness is not required in IFR .. "
It was obvious to me we were debating this fact and not the overall " situation awarenesss principle (i.e knowing where you are, etc.. )
For the rest I quite agree with what you are saying.
An I also would prefer English only at International airports , and that include CDG.
My point is that the present ICAO rules allow otherwise, and as my first intructor told me : " you do not have to like the rules, you have to follow them "
For info , the French pilots , and the French CAA ( DGAC) argue the same safety argument to maintain French on the R/T . saying that the chances of misunderstandings between French Pilots and French Controllers is far less if both use their mothertongue.
This same argument was used in 1976 to impose French on the R/T in Quebec , by the way..