The rhetoric, at least as I encountered it all my life, is that the French are horrible and cruel about people speaking their language, or trying to.
They are, but they are everything else as well: kind, patient, irritated, confused, and really nice about it. They vary. And if I had to give an overall accounting, despite some bitter experiences with that famous French disdain, they are like people everywhere else we've travelled: touched and complimentary about our speaking their language, in this case, the awesome and mysterious French one.
And though one is supposed to hold tourists in general contempt in order to feel better about being a tourist (I'm an Emigre, dammit!), all these English speaking tourists flocking to the Cote D' Azur and speaking English like it's a divine right have set the stage for our flailing, toddler level, utterly confused French to look like graciousness itself to the beleaguered local inhabitants.
Going in I was inclined to think that many tourists have better French than we do, but I suspect now it is only the tiniest percentage that do. A couple days ago in a beach restaurant (that we can see from the window of where we're currently living), we got a slightly absurd compliment from the waiter we were chatting with that brought it all home.
"How did you come to learn French!" The waiter marvelled. "It is very unusual for Americans to know French."
It should be noted this was spoken in English.
Although it is possible someone else has paid us this compliment in French in the past, but it would have blown by us by as we only understand maybe a quarter of what anyone says to us, and then only when it is slow, has a lot of context, and is being said the second time around.
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