dropdown take up much space on the home page because of the default value text (very long: "Site default (Français) " in french Réglage par défaut (Français) ) .

it would be nice to add a new configuration for removing language default text.
this config is false by default so it'll not impact the normal application behavior.

In config.php we add :

/**
 * Disable default language.
 */
$cfg->disabledefaultlanguage = true;

and in lib/web.php we add the condition:

if(!get_config('disabledefaultlanguage')) {
            $languages = array_merge(array('default' => get_string('sitedefault', 'admin') . ' (' .
            get_string_from_language(get_config('lang'), 'thislanguage') . ')'), $languages);
        }