https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_speakers_in_Europe

This list estimates native French and English speakers are approximately the same amount as of 2024

I knew Russian was gonna be the largest but I’m surprised German was higher than French and English, and didn’t know French and English were approximately neck and neck

Lingua franca isn’t about native speakers, and if anything it’s about second language speakers. Mandarin has the most global native speakers, but even if we remove it from the running because it has a logographic writing system, number 2 is Spanish. Yet the global lingua franca is English.