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?
Only in the region you have control over. Example, EU decides French is the new lingua Franca. That doesn’t mean China, India or the US will start learning French. If they don’t then it isn’t really the lingua franca.
The thread is “Should English stay the lingua franca of Europe?”.
Of course that is a limitation.
While we’re at it we could also mention that like with a lot of things you can control, this is also a thing you don’t have absolute control over. But with majority consensus you can teach whatever language and really focus a lot of hours on it, and it’s significantly more likely to be a successful widely spoken language that serves as the lingua franca.