As always, there are 2 sides to this story but something that always annoys me in Spain is the lack of SA, and bad English.
While the French/English thing is not optimum, agreed, the French have outstanding SA and are able to talk good English even when they have an accent.
In Spain, the centre controllers are barely OK, but most approach controllers are just horrible. Recently for decent planning:
"XXX Can we expect the full procedure or a 6 mile final ?"
"Station calling ?"
Repeated more slowly ...
"Hello, calling for weather ?"
"Disregard"
