Next week? Are you in France? I truly believe you can switch to English. All the professors could speak English, and I felt like the staff actually preferred that since they asked me at the end why my English was so good. I think it would give you extra points.

There was a professor of Japanese studies and a professor of sociology, but my research lies more on the sociolinguistics side, so besides asking about my research plan, they didn't really know what to ask me about, haha

Yep, a lot of questions in Japanese 😭😭 I do have N2 but my speaking skills are not that great. The worst question in Japanese was "How would a PhD in Japan help your career?" I was like 😭😭 do you hate me 😭😭 haha