> it just feels weird as a French person to discover that French is not even required in your own country.

And why should it be? In big cities people tend to be more adaptive towards this than outside. If you go outside to the country side the situation will rapidly change.

But in every major European capital it is most likely possible to get around on just English.

I always make an effort when in France, Germany and Poland to speak the local language but more often than not the locals speak English much better than I speak their language and after a sentence or two the switch is made. Of course making an effort is appreciated anyway but there definitely is no expectation of being able to hold a full conversation in the language of the place you visit.

I agree for a place of visit, and I do the same when I can, but for a place to live in, that's a different beast.

Again, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but this realisation was quite surprising to me

Because if you live in a country for 8 years you are bound to encounter limits in where English can support you. Police, hospitals, local doctors, local elections, bureaucracy, food label and shops, information notice and warnings, verbose street sign for road works and many more.

Doctors police and just about everybody else here speaks English, street signs are unified across the EU, road works you might get stumped but many navigators will deal with that just fine.

A friend of mine has lived in NL for 3 decades now and still does not speak Dutch, I'm sure he's an exception but he does not seem in any way hindered by this particular inability.