I have been to France in 2000, 2010 and last year, and this last time I was unable to use French with waiters and cashiers in Paris. They realized my French was not exactly fluent and immediately switched to English. Very surprising, but at least in Paris youngish people seemed positively eager to use English instead of French. And the skills were passable, too - generally way better than my French.

Wow, this looks amazing. I would love a more detailed writeup on how to do this; I think I would be able to do something like this, but there are too many details I have no experience of.