Same nearly happened to me earlier this year, but I managed to squeeze in a 1 hour with an examiner (acting as FI) two days before as some student had cancelled due to too much wind.
It is a stupid, pointless rule IMO, it should be like the FAA BFR, whereby you can't fly until you do the BFR, but you can leave it for some time.
Had I let mine lapse, I wouldn't have bothered to renew it, I would have let the JAA licence go and just use my FAA certificate....