While I think 70cm is probably more popular than 2m in Europe, 2m is the preferred default in North America. Just about everywhere you go on the continent, you'll be able to find a 2m band FM repeater on some nearby hilltop with the customary 600 kHz channel spacing and a CTCSS control tone. Is every cash-strapped amateur radio club supposed to go and drop a few grand to convert all these stations to 70cm?
I could probably see an argument for potentially clawing back (not eliminating) the bandwidth for some of the microwave allocations in C band and up, which are definitely under-utilized by the amateur radio community. But Thales trying to make a land-grab on one of the most popular ham bands simply because it happens to be globally allocated is utterly absurd.
Calling in as one of those people. Part of the reason I did so is that, for a small time commitment and about $30 I can do a small part of community service in the form of traffic nets and external communication (I do regularly check into the local traffic net, although I've yet to generate or accept any traffic. I should do that at one point)
Right now, and for the foreseeable future, the 2M band is the workhorse for things like storm spotters talking to the NWS. All storm spotting happens on a 2M repeater here as well as across networks all across the midwest. There is no simple replacement for it. There are millions of dollars in investment by thousands of smaller organizations that would be a massive burden to replace.