I’m surprised they can compete even locally in France.

They have to deal with a lot of problems that don’t exist in USA. Lack of top talent due to low wages, excessive bureaucracy and regulations imposed by their government, one of the most protective and rigid labor markets, small local market (EU isn’t exactly a single market), lack of VC, …

Maybe adjust your priors slightly, about either country.

I think you could make that case for most of Europe. I think Europe has this internalized narrative that our tech companies build what worked in the US, but GDPR-compliant or some other thing.

Lots of reasons for that (EU fragmentation, overregulation, hard to raise money), but I agree that the first thing that needs to shift is cultural.