Re: Is this an EU or Europe thing ?
Companies invent and compete regardless of who ever President.
Why don't you read about SECAM and PAL and the history behind it, and the time when invented.
Might I suggest that you read the link you provided, where you will find the statement "in the post-war De Gaulle era there would have been much political resistance to dropping a French-developed system and adopting a German-developed one instead".
I've studied, built & repaired PAL and SECAM decoders for some 30+ years now. The RCA system that was adopted by the NTSC was an ingenious solution to the problem of retaining compatibility with the previous black & white system. As always, though, being first had disadvantages; once the system was in common use its sensitivity to phase errors became evident. Both Thomson's SECAM and Telefunken's PAL were updates to NTSC which resolved that, and there were technical pros and cons to each. Simple-PAL decoders could handle an error of 20 degrees or so, SECAM could do better but was harder to handle in the studio and required an expensive (at the time) precision delay line. As European countries came out of their post-war period in the 1950s/60s and started to spend on more 'frivolous' things like TV, they all tested all three systems. Faced with the political resistance to adopting a German-derived system (PAL) over a French one, France went for SECAM. Rumour at the time was that the French government subsidised Thomson's delay line production to make SECAM TVs as affordable as the early PAL ones.
I have listened to Brexit Britain now from the very beginning and still you cannot avoid the "European nationalism isn't particularly surprising in Macron-era France".
That has little to do with Brexit, and more to the fact that I've been watching French politics for 20+ years. It's clear that Macron is determined to create an EU as a nation that can outdo the USA, and for that he is keen to drive more integration at the political, fiscal and military level. He is by far the most nationalist of the mainstream EU politicians. If he gets re-elected as President next year then I would not be surprised to see him push to make the role of EU president one that has more executive power, along the lines of the USA, so that he can then move on from France to become EU president post 2027. It's all about power & control.
what is it with you, still sour about having been kicked out of the continent or is it just that you know they are as good as you are, and that is so annoying.
Why do you think one group is "as good" or "better"? We're just different, with different approaches to solving problems. Personally I prefer the freedom of the EEC model of co-operating countries in a free market, with shared aims, over the EU model of one-size-fits-none centralised control. It's a pity it reached the point where we chose to leave, but we did and that should not be any reason why we can't still cooperate where it benefits both groups.
