In my experience (last September), the French dislike of Americans is greatly exaggerated. In fact, quite a few people I talked to (an advantage of traveling alone - at least for me - is that I tend to talk to people more) were quite interested in the US. I speak very bad French, but everyone was very nice - just make sure you know the basics (like the terms excuse me, do you speak English?, please and thank you.) I didn't meet anyone in Paris who didn't speak at least some English and most spoke it quite well.

Marguerite in Chicago http://members.aol.com/yearlytour/travel.html