French is a nice addition to have, no doubt about it. I don't know about 9 years to be fluent, some people do it in far less time. It all depends on how dedicated you are to learn the language (lots of outside study time vs just studying it in class). If you're passionate about something, you will seek the information until you have a good grasp of it. This is how I am handling the different aspects of animation. I entered the animation grad school program with no prior animation experience, so it's a lot of outside studying for me to keep up with the students who have an undergrad in animation.

I forgot to mention, also, that various computer/server networking positions are also a route to go. Server admins, computer hardware repair, software security...there are all these other options as well outside of actual game development.

Even if you don't land an internship with SE, Disney almost always has positions open. And yeah, people will say "lolDisney" but that shit is awesome on a resume