Interestingly, after a quick look at some stats, it's not totally obvious why Germany has higher emissions per capita.

Your theory that it's France's extensive nuclear use seems unlikely though since Spain, UK, Portugal, Italy etc. all seem to be roughly on par.

My initial guess is that burning coal, or worse lignite or worse peat, seems to be the decisive factor, though high industry usage also plays a part.

If you just compare carbon intensity per KWh produced, then France has a notable lead, 6 times less than Germany, so I wonder what brings them back down into the pack. Is some of that electricity being wasted or used inefficiently?

French reactors are also almost all older than 30 years, and it is thought that constructing new reactors would be extremely expensive, as most megaprojects tend to be these days, so I don't think it is a fair counterfactual. Smaller renewable and natural gas plants don't seem to suffer from cost disease so much.