That's funny, there's a huge community of people doing just that: https://circuitpython.org/awesome

Hm, why not though. People managed to do it with tiny JVMs before, so why not a Python variant.

Java is statically typed and a lot saner than Python, and JavaCard is a fairly restricted subset. Apparently real cards don't typically support garbage collection.

IMO JavaCard doesn't really make sense either. There's clearly space for another language here, though I suspect most people would much rather just use Rust than learn a new language.

That's fair, except a little reminder that for most people Rust is the new language. :)