Oh no! Someone in a foreign country did not make any more effort than the author did to learn a foreign language! Not once, but twice! That's it, I'm never leaving San Francisco again.

And as for your snark, no, many French people do not speak English, and a fair number resent Americans going around like they own the place without making even a cursory attempt at being polite.

My wife and I are from the U.S. She's from Belarus, but has been in the country for 30 years. We went to France about 10 years ago. I was semi-expecting the stereotype (rude, arrogant), but everybody we met was nice. One guy at the hotel seemed standoff-ish at first, but he was very friendly by the time we left a week later. Pretty much everybody we interacted with was pleasant and helpful. We tried to use the few French words we knew (thank you, please, hello, goodbye type of thing), but for the most part we had to speak English. I think almost everybody we interacted with spoke English, at least a little. This was in Paris mostly, so maybe that's not representative. I was generally impressed with the people.

Best way for a native English speaker to get someone in France to speak English is to speak French to them.

I speak French, German, and a small amount of Greek (enough to order a coffee and read a map). That's no use when I go to Italy or Spain or Poland or Latvia or Sweden of course, so we just speak English.

The big difference between europe and america is the market. The US is a homogenous culture with a single language and single desires with 350 million people. You can launch a product in the US based on US culture and assumptions and reach a massive economy

Launch it in Belgium and you've got a fragmented market. Not just the language, but also the culture -- expectations in Belgium, Romania and Norway are all very different.

No they don't. As a French person, I can assure you that the level of English of the average French person is completely abysmal.

On the other hand, as a foreigner, I have been to tiny villages in Sweden where even 70 year old grandmas know enough English to communicate.