One thing I find about France and Italy is that they peaked many decades ago and are still living off of who they were. Let's give credit though, they are renowned and loved for a reason, the art, culture and innovations that came from these places was insane and borderline unrivaled (especially from Italy)!
However, they never really grew past that.
It's like the guy who peaked at 16 but now he is 30, bald, overweight, an alcoholic, has aged poorly, and hasn't done anything with his life since then. Whenever you talk to him, he's always on about how he was "The Man" back in school, what his favorite beer is, or how he likes to cook his steak.
But now imagine that you are at the high school reunion over a decade later and all people care about is who everyone was at 16, not what everyone did with their lives since then, so the bald alcoholic still has status despite not doing much since graduation. No one wants to talk about what anyone made of their lives since then, just what he did at 16 and his favorite beer.
Why should the bald alcoholic change? He's still "cool" despite not having done anything with his life since 16. If anything, the bald alcoholic actually gets a bit of an ego because he is being gassed up for his taste in beer or how he cooks a steak while trying to live with the harsh reality of his life. He starts to become insufferable to be around.
This is where we are with places like France and Italy.
People don't care where these countries are now, they just care about the wine, the food, and some weird "high culture" that insecure people who desperately want to sound important can use to be smug towards others.
Why fix anything? The naive American idiot is still going to drool and go "Look yall! Croissants! Uh huh! We cultured yall!".
Long story short, barring exceptions, France and Italy have the most smug people in all of Europe with the most out of wack egos.