Hello Oz boy !
I am not totally agreeing with all the comments above,
You don't need to speak french to work in France, if you plan to be hired by English or Irish airlines operating from Paris... It's obviously a different story to work for a french airline.
As you are from Australia, it sounds a good idea to undertake a JAR conversion in UK.
The bad news is that it's horribly expensive, wherever you go in Europe , whatever your experience is.
But good luck, and stay tuned on the French Forum to let us know about your conversion; as this question comes regularly, it could be very interesting to have a "live" report of the conversion process.
A bientôt