There were many lingua francas of which French was supposedly the first global lingua franca. That changed and it became English (from what I understand). We will probably see another language become the lingua franca, so my question is: should it be English? Are there better candidates out there? Why / why not?
English is good for the reasons pointed out. Also: It’s no language of the EU (at least for now) so no country gets an edge over the others which should be considered too. (I’m a native German speaker)
Ireland.
True! Obviously forgot. At least quite a small proportion. And English is just one of the two official languages.
Oh right, Malta too :)
Ireland?