They become thin stereotypes who speak some infantalised form of Creole and broken English, but not French. Never French. And the white characters who dance on their graves find their good white French unusable in this strange other world.

This makes me think the writer doesn't even know French. I'm a white European non-native speaker of French who've lived in three different French speaking African countries and at no time have I ever had a hard time understanding any of the natives. On the contrary, it's easier to understand non-France French because the language rhythm is slower and the tonality is less pronounced. French language snobs considers everything spoken outside of Paris to be patois, but any insight in linguistics at all will reveal that Creole is very much a language unto its own, not some strange gibberish.

When I lived in the US and people heard me speak my native tongue, most of them thought it was French and immediately started fawning all over me. I don't understand the notion that French is some sort of posh white wonder. Then again, I faked my accent (which is a mutt hybrid of everywhere) to a nice RP English accent in half my college classes and guess what? I got a higher grade in those classes than I did in the other half -- apparently speaking British English makes me smahteh.