It's especially crazy because in most of Europe I am pretty sure a mere possession of a credit card is correlated with being more likely to get into financial trouble.

I never had a credit card. Among my friends who do well financially most don't have a credit card or just got it because their bank offered a crippled debit card that wasn't accepted at hotels and car rental. They never use the credit line. On the other have out of the financially irresponsible people I know most have multiple credit cards and use them as a credit line in regular basis.