I hear french all day, and I speak it a lot too. My french isn’t that great, I’m  no where near fluent but I do understand what people are saying almost all the time (unless it’s a really complex subject). I speak english with the parents most of the time because they want to improve their english. the mom rents apartments to tourists so she has to really work on her speaking. And yes! I made so many friends here, no problems at all! The people in the pictures are all people I met here via facebook. It’s easy to find other au pairs when you’re living in a big city like Paris.