That’s kind of the nature of conservatism. Some invaders capture the city, force everyone to convert to their religion or be killed, and 500 years later it is our religion, the religion of our ancestors, the one we always had and will never change.

I think the EU will always be a mere bureaucratic administration unless all European citizens speak the same language. I can’t really think of any serious alternative to English, that’s by an order of magnitude the only real common denominator. For that, French, but also Dutch, German, Spanish, etc must all disappear as languages. And we should be ruthless. French only became the language of France because that country got ruthless with regional languages (patois).