A friend told me that he was in Paris a couple of years ago and does not speak any French at all. He got along great with everyone by pointing, smiling, and asking in English while gesturing (and saying bonjour and merci a lot--the only French he knows). Everyone was polite and patient. Until he had to buy train tickets to Versailles. He went to the booth and asked a young woman in English for two tickets to Versailles please (while he made his request, he held up his thumb and forefinger and also pointed to Versailles on the map in his hand). She giggled and said, "no English, go to the end of the line." He said he never pulls the ugly American thing, but this time he chose to refuse to move because (1) she told him to go to the end of the line repeatedly in perfect English with almost no accent (2) although his request was in English, he did it in a way that any non-English speaker would find it to be a pretty obvious request, and (3) every time she told him to go to the end of the line, she looked at her coworker and giggled. She continued to refuse to serve him and he continued to refuse to move and repeated his request to her until a French woman in line behind him spoke to the ticket seller, who then finally gave him the tickets and completed the transaction...counting back his change in perfect English.
Two days later, they were back at the same station and had to buy tickets. He looked over, and there was the same woman selling tickets. Knowing how to speak Hawaiian, he marched right over to her ticket desk and made his request in Hawaiian. She hesitated and then asked, "Do you speak any English?" He hesitated and said, "a little". She then said, "then speak English please" and completed his entire transaction in English. It was too bad that this woman had to be a jerk on their first encounter. Again, he found everyone else in Paris to be very patient and polite with him and with his lack of French.
As a side note, I speak German and some Spanish, but French just seems to not stick in my brain. So when I was in Paris, I would use one or two words of my exceedingly poor French (along with my hideous pronunciation and poor accent) with some strange combination of German and English to fill in the gaps. Despite my 10 word French vocabulary and painful--extremely painful--pronunciations, I was always given patience and treated very well by the Parisians.
