I once accidentally spoke french to a waitress in Greece then apologised and said I wasn't actually french. She went on a ten minute diatribe about how french people are the bane of her life because they refuse to speak English with her and just get louder and louder in french 😂
It's not that they can't speak English, the cliché (at least in the past) is that they refuse to speak it. Spanish people are probably worse when it comes to English proficiency these days.