Perhaps this can be generalized? Language entitlement seems to be a thing among French speaking regions. Whether it's French Canada, French Belgium or France?
I'm quite certain the position of French-Canadians has little to do with « entitlement », and more with how trapped they feel. Not that Anglo-Canadians would give a rats ass about the actual motives of Québec's cultural policy, as long as it can get weaponized for political currency.
Frankly this entire thread reeks.
French has also been a traditional common language or diplomacy and international relations. It's probably got more inertia going for it in those circles than German would.
Ireland kept its Gaelic language. And nobody speaks it.
Also I fail to see how this would impact the usage of French in France if the official language within the EU institution is English? The EU as an institution is comprised of a couple of thousand people from all over the EU, it would have no impact whatsoever on French as a spoken language. French is no longer the lingua franca, English is and therefore it makes more sense to use English as the common language within the EU institutions. Anything else is political currency as you so aptly mentioned.
Not that I believe that the rest of Canada somehow has the moral high ground or something but what is going on in Quebec language wise is frankly completely non-understandable from an outsider's point of view. From that both sides have good and bad arguments in the debate but at this point things are just silly. It feels like a never ending blood feud. The vicious cycle has to be broken.
Yes the Anglos weren't nice to French speakers. I sympathize.
Now the French speakers want to legislate doing the same to Anglos? Are they crazy? Sorry but sympathy withdrawn immediately!