Not uniform across France, either. If you try your broken French in out-of-the-way villages in Brittany, you will generally once again get your smiles and encouragement. In Paris, more of the evil eye.

The Netherlands is interesting. It's nearly guaranteed that their English is better than your Dutch, so if you try anything more than "good morning" then they will generally rapidly switch to English. More politely than in France, but with a firmness that indicates no desire at all to waste time on communication problems when none are necessary.

You can even have it the other way around. An English colleague of mine tried to be polite and speak in (obviously non-native) Dutch to a Dutch lady in a super market once. The lady got offended by it and said "I _do_ speak English, you know". As if, rather than for practice, he tried to speak Dutch because he assumed she couldn't hold up her end of a conversation in English.

It's called the expat paradox.

I have, in multiple countries, including France. My French is far from perfect, but I don’t recall being insulted or derided for my attempts to use it, even in Paris which tends to be the epicenter of these experiences for others from what I hear.

I do wonder if this is a cultural difference as another fellow commenter mentioned - maybe I was corrected and did not take it as an insult (and don’t even recall it), because I am not originally English or American.

Anyway, my point was that you were propagating a negative stereotype, and not based on your own experience even. The world has enough negativity already... It’s not nice.

I spoke pretty broken French in Paris and all I received was kindness. Obviously YMMV but I wouldn't paint with a broad brush like this.