I am an Englishman who is working in France, for a French company and who works with French programmers daily.

I would like to say that my collegues are as competent as those of any other nationality that I have encountered. I would also like to point out that the French education system prides itself on producing very qualified (note - not competent!) "ingenieurs" - this is a word that does not completely translate into engineer as it can only be applied to university educated professionals.

At least our friend is programming in his native language (I presume) - the keywords are not translated, nor are any of the library functions. What is even worse is that if one uses "MS Dev Studio" - the help, nor the program has been internationalised!

One could therefore suggest that a Frenchman who can do what our friend does is actually MORE competent, as he is working in a foreign language!