I have flown with many French pilots (still friends with most of them) and they mostly all agreed that the airspace would be safer if we all spoke english in the air, and that their command of the English language would have been much improved had this been enforced years ago. In France, as in other countries, you have to have a level of English to obtain the commercial but rarely use it until your in the deep end. I hear that France will soon insist on English for all comunications. I wonder.