ATMs in the Netherlands (in 2011) required a chip & pin. What's the story NOW in Paris? Magnetic stripe cards still OK?

ATMs in France do not require chips.

1. As far as I know, the PIN has to be only 4 digits no longer applies....

As noted you don't get a choice of which account is accessed when using a European ATM. It is the primary account on the card but it can be a savings account if that is the primary account.

Step 1 of almost all ATM's I have seen in Paris is language although as noted often they use flags and the Union Jak represents English (you don't expect a Mexican flag for Spanish or an Austrian flag for German, do you?) Even in out of beaten path places I have been in Poland, the Czech Republic and others, there is always an English choice.

Bank of America is one of the few banks that has a legion of honor for which banks to use. And as noted, charges are for the most part determined by your bank. Try to find a bank which charges the proper amount for accessing your money i.e. $0 like in zero....also you do have to check out whether your bank adds extra fees to the conversion rate...many of the near criminal American banks add an additional 2% or more to the 1% fee charged by mc/visa (which run the largest shared teller networks cirrus/plus). There are some enlightened banks which even eat the 1% fee and use the interbank rate completely. Also watch out if the bank machine suggests amounts in your currency and assurs you it will give yo the equivalent amount in local curreny. THEY WILL RIP YOU OFF....deal only with local currency from start to finish of the transaction (this is a scam similar to dynamic currency conversion and while I haven't seen it in France, it seems to be epidemic in Spain).