“Space should not be a hunting ground for billionaires.” — Valérie Pécresse

Fixed it for you, Valérie:

“Space should not be a subsidized playground for those who throw away their rockets after a single use.”

The Ariane rocket project must be one of the biggest embarrassments not only in space aviation, but as a wholesale indictment of government-funded projects that have a direct comparison with market-based competitors.

That the lesson learnt from this is "Space should not be dominated by market forces" probably explains the whole difference for why the US are the most dynamic economy in the world and Europe is nowhere close.

Why they haven't thrown their wasteful rocket design out of the window and instead asked a team a tenth of the size to try and copy-paste the Falcon design is beyond me.

If it's so easy to copy-paste Falcon, then why has nobody else done it?

It's probably not profitable at this point. But if ESA is going to waste money anyway, then why waste it on an obsolete rocket design?