A lot of educated people are proud to speak English wherever you go. In Europe where multilingual is the norm, often they'll identify you as North American and will initiate conversation in English.

I did not find that to be the case in Spain - at least not in Madrid or Sevilla. They spoke a lot more English in Alicante and Barcelona.

When we were in Paris, we discovered that the quickest way to get the French to speak English was by trying to speak French. We murdered the language so badly that they didn't want to hear it anymore ;)