ESA has had loads of orbital launches. Arianespace is a French company and the world's first commercial space launch co. Not sure it's reasonable to discount EU as stagnated.

There are few places in EU that make sense to launch from - the ideal launch site is from the equator, from land, with an empty ocean to the East to launch over. Look at the EU geographically and you can see why the European launches would chose a non EU site.

Now with the US and Russia both becoming poor candidates geopolitically, I suppose it makes sense to explore local options, even if they're less efficient/safe/convenient.