Hi Folks......
ICAO is an international organisation created as a collateral of the United Nations System....Official working languages, are English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian... Conferences are held with translations in all those official languages, as well as documents released...
This is true for all the United Nations and related organisations.
ICAO has nothing to do with the working language of crews..It is a non governmental organisation dealing with administrative matters of standardisation and rights of the air....
The working language as far as crews is concerned is English...Though so far it has been widely accepted to alternatively use national language domestically between crews and ATC... which has created many problems of understanding with foreign operators as regards to other traffic...
It is worth noticing that this matter has been submiutted by a Norwegian fellow...Scandinavians as well as dutch and to some extent Germans are quite fluent in English...down to the man of the street...
In France....The French are at a total loss when it comes to English,,,Forget the man of the street: chinese russian or english is the same for him...Crews and ATC comprehension of English is limited to plain basics...Virtually nobody can sustain a sound conversation in English even at the highest spheres of business finace and politics..
Northern countries are naturally endowed for anglo Saxon languages....even the accent is right....
The problem with the French -and this is not a criticism- is that they have a very hard time learning English.....Because of the Latin origin of their native language... The same can be said for Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Greeks...
This is one of the reasons pilots from these countries are seldom seen outside their boundaries, especially in fast growing places like the middle east....
The reason is simple They know their job....but cannot communicate in English which is the working language in aeronautics.....
Chinese and Russians.....they only add to the problem...