During my brief visit to Paris I only used three French words... Bonjour, au revoir, and merci. Everyone I needed to deal with understood and spoke English well enough for me to converse with. Which was good because that was all the French I could use. But this was Paris and I was in places where foreign visitors would be expected. A few people in the streets would pretend they didn't understand English, and maybe some really didn't. Perhaps other places would have fewer people comfortable enough with English to use it. But one the other had, why should they have to use English?
Recently while listening to French radio stations via the internet while waiting for Alizée interviews to come on, I discovered that half of the songs played on the radio were songs from English-speaking countries performed by the original artists in English. Someone must want to hear them.
The world is always changing for better or for worse.
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