But I also get the "uncomfortable imperial" point

@corrupt : yeah I agree with that . I think at least in richer countries everyone should learn one "universal" language

I'd still prefer English to be the lingua franca for two reasons: plenty of exposure opportunities because it's everywhere; non-gendered so you don't have to play mind games about whether a book is m, f, or neutral

English has an uncomfortable imperialist and colonial connotation in many cultures, making it probably not the best choice, globally.

As long as it's not French, I can understand

Be that English, Spanish, or Mandarin.

I tend to agree. But there's a lot of cultural identity and works connected to languages. I guess the best way would be for everybody in the world to just learn "that one language" as their first foreign language.