Not sure that this belongs here, but it does seem eminently cringeworthy, so just to get it off my chest...
Recently I saw an email where one francophone was seeking to assure a colleague, also a francophone, of his readiness to tackle a job - "Je suis dans les starting-blocks ...". Surely, to French ears, that must sound, well, foreign? I doubt the Académie Française would approve.
I suppose we might say (not quite synonymously) 'on the qui vive' . . .