I haven’t found my European colleagues to be any nicer than the American ones. In fact, they’re often more straightforward in ways that would seem inappropriate or cruel in America.

What they are not, however, is so deeply motivated by fear that if they lose their job, they’ll lose their house/health insurance/families, be labeled a worthless outcast by society etc. That seems to be the primary difference in determining how toxic people’s behavior is in the workplace.