I agree, the French are convinced that Clément Ader invented the plane, that they made the first flight, that Nungesser and Coli were the first to cross the Atlantic by plane, and that Airbus is the French biggest aircraft producer in the world.
The misunderstanding is that English has never been accepted to replace local official languages, it is just recognized as the official language for international flights. It would be impossible to impose another language to French people as it is forbidden by their law and you would get a riot from 40000 local pilots who do not want to learn English to fly in their airspace (+most of african and East Canadian airspaces...).
English is just tolerated on the French frequencies for pilots coming from abroad who did no yet learn the French poetic aeronautical language, they are tolerated and cannot ask for more.
Many posts were about French but we could go on in the same way with Russian language on Russian frequencies (with the same national pride and aeronautical superiority: Gagarine + spoutnik...) or Chinese language on Chinese frequencies.
Chinese could expect all of us to switch to Chinese language within a decade as they are becoming the biggest airline market, and purchasing all our aeronautical companies... I don't know how many pilots will accept to learn Chinese to fly safely around Duxford or Wichita.
