I don’t think this issue is about the French spoken in West Africa being 'broken.' Or that 'they were themselves learning French'… Rather, it reflects the tolerance and adaptability inherent in multilingual societies like those in West Africa. People are simply more accustomed to communicating across different languages and more accepting of non-native speakers and various accents, even if they are native speakers themselves. Ironically this tolerance as opposed to the supposed academic perfection of the language spoken in France makes use of the language as it was initially intended when it was created a lingua franca meant to be used by a wide variety of people. In France however there is often less tolerance for varying pronunciations and accents, not everyone is the same in that regard but it’s definitely something people experience in France (we would wish that maybe they would resort to English sometime to continue the conversation or correcting us but this is much less likely too).

This isn't just about non-native speakers but also applies to native French speakers from regions like Quebec or Congo. Despite using similar vocabulary, they sometimes face challenges being understood in France, mainly due to their distinct accents, I mean I believe this also occurs between various region of France

> . In France however there is often less tolerance for varying pronunciations and accents,

Yes this was covered in my original message. Miss pronouncing a word in French can make it extremely hard to understand for a native speaker. And yes people from Quebec are an excellent example. They will often struggle when their accent is too strong when visiting France. And people are not ill meaning, Quebecois are very popular in France, it's just genuinely hard.

People often don't know that the French language was literally a political weapon to create France. France is political construct, not cultural like most countries. It is an aggregation of different cultures, including different languages. It was vital for France to succeed as a construct to force the idea of "correct French". A French language that would be the same everywhere, without local variations. So yeah, the French ear is not used to dealing with mistakes or strong accents.

> Additionally they most likely already knew English and were able to decipher "French broken by an English speaker".

No, they did not speak English.

If they had, I wouldn't have subjected them to my French.