Air carrier Captain stated the use of the French language in the Montreal airspace is a safety concern.

Narrative

All air traffic control frequencies in the Montreal area are peppered with transmissions from both controllers and other aircraft in the French language. While I have nothing against the French language; I do find it distracting and harmful to situational awareness when instructions that affect aircraft in my vicinity are issued and responded to in French. Since I neither speak nor understand the language; my mental picture of operations around me is diminished. That's the reason that we have established English as the language for air traffic control. Some of the instructions in French were pertaining to movement of aircraft in my area of operation (arrival corridor and apron areas at CYUL; for instance). I request that we bring this to the attention of the FAA and its Canadian equivalent; TCCA. This has been happening for years; and I've mentioned it a couple of times to the controllers. The typical response has been something to the effect of 'I know where everybody is'; though this time I made no transmitted remark.