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a village which is 50% anglophone
This is one of the things that really held me back when I lived in Toulouse. Just so many English speakers there and a working population in shops/restaurants, etc. entirely used to responding in English when you asked them something in an obviously English accent.
I found going to the local pub helped a lot. And, oddly enough, buying a second-hand car. That taught me shitloads not just about French and the accompanying vocabulary but also the insane bureaucracy.
ketsbaia
I've lived here 3 years now, and I've gone from a smattering of 35 year old GCSE grade C French to reading quite well and being able to understand spoken French pretty well. My spoken French is terrible really, entirely due to a lack of confidence. It's OK if I know what I am going to say, or if it's completely off the cuff and I forget to be nervous. Otherwise my brain just freezes. Same in English and Italian really!
I learned by a mixture of Michel Thomas MP3s (which I kept answering in Italian, cos that's how I learned what little Italian I speak, and the courses are almost identical), reading everything that came into the mailbox ('pub' is great for learning the names of obscure things), buying French car mags and newspapers, etc. and watching French TV. Initially it was things like N'oubliez pas les paroles, or The Voice, or Wheeler Dealers France, because if you know they are only going to be talking about a limited subject matter you can concentrate on the language. Then I graduated to Scènes de ménages and C'est Canteloup for some comedy. Then dramas like Lupin. TV is good for slang and all the oddities of spoken French like people saying "en fait" in every sentence and never saying "ne" when they negate something.
Also good are HelloFrench and French avec Nelly on Youtube. Great for teaching slang, swearing, alternatives to textbook French. Really helped with my comprehension of spoken French. Nelly is nice looking too which is very shallow of me but it does help to keep me watching.
Because I moved during lockdown and accidentally into a village which is 50% anglophone I've not really done much talking to real French people. Postal workers, delivery men, checkout staff, restauranteurs, that kind of thing.
I used to have a really good French accent before I moved here but I've actually gone backwards and deliberately sound English now, so that French people will reply to me more slowly and clearly. What accent I have picked up is Charentaise so people in Paris probably think I'm a yokel. I need to train myself out of it.