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I also found the "European" remark a bit weird.

I'm American so I don't really know, do Europeans generally ignore how AM/PM works?

IIRC the Romans created the system, so I'd find it really weird if it had dissapeared from common usage around there.

Also, every single picture I've found of a clock tower from Europe seems to follow a 12-hour convention.

Even when it's midnight and the clock hands point to 12, it's just 0:00 in our heads. Of course when thinking an talking about time, sometimes the numbers 13 to 23 are replaced with their 1 to 11 counterparts and if it's ambiguous, a "in the morning", "in the afternoon", "in the evening" is added. But there's a clear distinction between "0" and "12". When someone says "12 o'clock", it's always 12 noon and never 12 midnight, since that would be "0 o'clock".

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