Gabon replaces French with English

Oh, absolutely. There are many languages besides English which are very useful. It's just that, French isn't one of 'em.

I don't think Gabon is worth talking about if you are a British person living in Europe. This is the way it goes:

If you're interested in science and technology you should learn German.
If you're interested in the emerging Latin economies you should learn Spanish (though arguably this has got more pointless lately, Spanish is wildly, wildly overrated)
If you're interested in EU politics or international institutions French is still indispensable. This is because France made up the EU.
If you're interested in making money next century you should be getting ahead of the pack and learning a bit of Mandarin.

What Navarre said above is pretty much true.

Also a change of language policy is pissing into the wind, presumably everyone currently still speaks French (the elites) or indigenous languages (the plebs).

Why do you want us all to speak English? What will happen, if we were all monolingual? Do you expect the world to be better? Do you really think that mankind will end all conflict and wars with speaking English? Are you so naive? And do you really think that Gabon will replace French with English only because of a President's command whose corruption is proved by French tribunals? In Gabon more than 75 % of the population use French to communicate with one another?
And besides, why should we all command the English language if it is lesser spoken in the USA where Spanish begins to become more important. In some regions English is no longer spoken.
Spoken by 220 millions, French is not useless as it generated a sizeable number of English words.

No one is claiming that the world is becoming monolingual, but it's certainly becoming tougher for languages like French. How many people will speak French in a 100 years do you think? Hardly any. In 100 years, the world will be dominated by English, Spanish, Chinese, Portuguese and Arabic.

220 million of people do not speak French. Most of those people barely know the language.

German is the second language of Europe. It has around 100 million speakers in the continent (far greater than French's 70 million), and Germany is Europe's economic powerhouse. French could be called the third language of Europe, but that's still no reason to teach it.

Yet, German is given a back seat to French.

Is it? Both are working languages of the EU. It may be that the main EU functions are located in French speaking cities like Brussels. Or it may be because the Germans know their language is absolutely fine, but the French know that their language is on a rapid decline and are desperately trying to protect it.

Laval University calculated that by 2025, 500 million people will be speakers of French (compared to 220 million now). You make it sound like French is a minority language, like Irish.

French is a minority language in the linguistic sphere. Even if we did take into account the people who only know how to say 'bonjour' and arrived at the vastly inflated number of 220 million speakers, it's hardly spoken outside France and a minority of African countries.

220 million was fluent speakers, not conversational. French is one of only two languages (other being English) spoken on five continents. 5 countries in Europe have French (more than English) as an official language.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2214994/Gabon-set-ditch-French-English-nations-second-language-bid-improve-opportunities-people.html#ixzz28tNPGtbL

Rwanda yesterday, Gabon today, maybe tomorrow it'll be Congo, Tunisia or perhaps even Belgium? Anyways, the growing uselessness of the French language does raise questions as to why it's so widely taught in our schools as opposed to Spanish, Arabic or Mandarin. Our language education needs a serious shake up.

Most of us will never be doing international business, and if we are, it'll be in English. For native English speakers, a lot of it boils down to whom you want to communicate with. Language opens up doors to culture, but that's the thing. I can't speak for speakers from the UK/Canada/Australia/NZ, but for a lot of Americans, France is a dream destination, at least moreso than the Middle East. China can be interesting, but their public bathrooms are disgusting. I suppose that's a conversation for another time, though.

Anyhow, there won't be a change in which languages are widely taught unless the parents ask for Arabic, Mandarin, and the like. French is seen as a very beautiful and prestigious language. That being said, Mandarin is increasingly taught in the US, and Spanish has always been a big second language.