[galgot]

I think from the French Gov it's just a way to express how fed up they are with UK Gov Brexit policy. They very well know that English is now the predominant language, Macron is in fact the first French president speaking English so well in public. Long gone is the "francophonie" policy of the 80's, the number of French peoples speaking English have increased considerably in the last 15/20 years. I see no "worries" about French being less used from the French officials, more a give up, which is kind of sad. So this move is very political.

[madia_leva]

I don't really think that they care about British on this one. They are gone, after all.

What really happens is that in the 15 last years English has gained space foot in the EU institutions, to the point that they are quickly becoming just English speaking. You have a service which used to homd all meetings in English, a new Croatian, Hungarian or Polish staff member who doesn't speak French arrives and suddenly all the meetings and mass emails are written in English. The opposite doesn't really happen.

After the start of the pandemic French suddenly lost almost all space in meetings with Member States representatives or just multiple services present. They have become English onlycause there is no interpretation anymore and many people can't speak or even understand French. Many people that chose to speak French in meetings (mostly as a matter of principle) now speak English. The change in the last year was huge. French just want to go back to the previous status quo.