Peter wrote:
AIUI, to fly into FR-only airports you need to speak French (the adequacy of which is presumably judged by the ATCO you are talking to) but you don’t need any test or endorsement saying you can.
Earlier in this thread we were trying to find written proof of the opposite (that French TRE/LP is required). Now a lot of people say it is not, so the logical question: Is it written somewhere that FR-only means just “speak French, you don’t need to have it in the license”?
I doubt you will find such a reg anywhere, because law is written in the restrictive, not in the permissive i.e. everything not expressly prohibited is permitted 
Does the typical French PPL have a FR LP endorsement? I know he/she can have.
Peter wrote:
I doubt you will find such a reg anywhere, because law is written in the restrictive, not in the permissive i.e. everything not expressly prohibited is permitted
There should be a description somewhere of what “FR-only” actually means. Probably even EASA-wide, not French specific. Otherwise it is just a useless piece of text.
Peter wrote:
I doubt you will find such a reg anywhere, because law is written in the restrictive, not in the permissive i.e. everything not expressly prohibited is permitted
You are correct for Anglo-Saxon countries and latin countries like France and Italy. But otherwise it varies by country and in many German-speaking countries anything not expressly permitted is prohibited. That statement might be considered by some to be an exaggeration, but in general law is the case.
On the subject though, the post #228 today by @Bookworm on the thread “Flying into French Language Only airfields” is to me the definitive statement. FR-only or GE-only in an AIP indicates the language to be used for radio communications. It says nothing about any LP endorsement because English LP is always sufficient. As long as one can communicate in the required language, an English LP is fine.
The grey zone, depending upon country, is likely if a local language is specified as the only language to be used and the pilot is unable to communicate in that language. If the airfield is in an RMZ then nordo is not an option and the airfield is essentially inaccessible to the pilot. However, there are several flavours of this. In some cases, like in France and I also believe at German non-RMZ airfields, FR-only or GE-only just means that the ground station only transmits in the local language. The pilot can still use English. Whether that is wise/safe or not is another question. But I think @Bookworm is right that legal action couldn’t be taken based on a lacking local LP endorsement if the pilot has an English LP. Action is conceivable based on the actual communications if not conforming to language use restrictions.
chflyer wrote:
But otherwise it varies by country and in many German-speaking countries anything not expressly permitted is prohibited. That statement might be considered by some to be an exaggeration, but in general law is the case.
This is not an exaggeration at all but very much the legal philosophy at least the people in German speaking countries see their laws. Often enough, if you want to do something and ask if you may do so, the answer you get is “where is it written down that you actually can do that?” and not many officials will ever give you a permission to do something unless there is a law or regulation which permits it explicitly. Or if someone is doing something another person does not approve of, a very standard challenge in such a case is to demand written proof that one is actually allowed to do what ever they are doing. This is not an aviation thing but simply a mentality. And if there is no law, people are very creative in imposing restriction and regulation whereever they have the chance to do so. In which other countries would you find regulations posted at the entries to playgrounds specifying the exact times while it may be actually used by children and when not, which kind of games may be played on a patch of lawn in a community and so on, not to mention house rules which sometimes are totally absurd.
Maybe that is also the reason why many people in those places have problems with ambiguity in law, as they are simply discouraged quite massively to assume that anything is allowed at all unless there is a regulation for it. Even if that is factually and legally wrong in most cases, the practice very much gives the impression that it is so.
I think there is a difference between civil and criminal law, and the above applies to civil law. For criminal law, I still think that in order to be criminally charged one needs to commit an offence defined as such in criminal law…. but we probably need a German/Swiss/Austrian lawyer here to make a definitive statement. 
No justice system in a civilised country could possibly work on the principle that you can do only what is expressly permitted.
There are different perceptions of this around Europe, differing according to culture and history, but to prosecute somebody (i.e. a criminal offence) they have to break a law.
In civil law there are no offences to prosecute. There are merely disputes to argue about in a court while paying lawyers
In aviation, the entire body of regulations is criminal law, but many regulations have no legal standing because the wrong process was followed; a polite way of saying that the issuer was clueless and got the job because of “connections”, a career in the national air force, or even a distinguished career running a chain of restaurants. For example the UK CAA generates loads of regs which exceed its authority which for the most part is defined in the ANO but they don’t know that. The system thus often works on FUD and this is effective because most pilots are scared sh1tless of losing their license. And it is the same in other countries…
As the above shows, this is how people think, not what the law actually says. Mooney_Driver sums it up very nicely – “it is simply a mentality”, part of the social fabric of the country, with of course a huge variation within each country and between countries.
chflyer’s statement “… in general law, that [anything that is not permitted is prohibited] is the case” is completely wrong in law, but if enough people believe it (as he appears to), it can be very much the reality in daily life, especially in regions where people enforce the law by challenging others or calling the police readily, as is the case in some parts of Switzerland.
Cobalt wrote:
“… in general law, that [anything that is not permitted is prohibited] is the case” is completely wrong in law
Not true. Many, many regulations are written in such a general way so that specific actions require approval. For example, privacy laws require approval to film individuals in a way that identifies them. So specific permission is required to mount video cameras on a building. Doing so without that permission is illegal and subject to prosecution. In some cases, a law might need to be passed to authorize it.
As mentioned, though, this applies to civil law and not criminal law. It is not true, though, that in civil law there are no offences to prosecute. Just that no one goes to jail. The line between the two is often related to the “seriousness” of the offence. In the US the word used to describe a criminal offence is “felony”. An easy way to understand this is with speeding. This line varies dramatically from country to country, but just as an example if one is caught speeding at “n” km over the limit one is fined or eventually has a licence suspension. Exceeding the limit by more than that one is charged with a criminal offence and can possibly go to jail.
chflyer wrote:
So specific permission is required to mount video cameras on a building
But only because there is a law specifically saying that. If there was no privacy law in Switzerland, you could mount cameras to your heart’s content, only the specific law makes this illegal.
There are some differences on how this is expressed. So as an example – let’s take the requirement to have a pilot’s licence.
One way: “No person shall operate an aircraft unless he/she has a licence issued in accordance with this law” (prohibition)
The other way: “In order to operate an aircraft, the person must have a licence issued in accordance with this law” (requirement for permission)
But the effect is the same.
