From what I can tell, ArianeGroup was completely oblivious to SpaceX successes, and reacted (way) too late. Ariane 6 is the panic mode reaction to try to remain

From what I can tell, ArianeGroup was completely oblivious to SpaceX successes, and reacted (way) too late. Ariane 6 is the panic mode reaction to try to remain somewhat relevant and somewhat competitive. Europe needs a launcher anyway, so in fact I'm not convinced this Ariane 6 was really necessary: keeping Ariane 5 as-is (or maybe streamlining its production a bit to cut the fat) would probably have been enough. ArianeGroup is going the reusable route eventually anyway. They don't have a choice: it's currently called Ariane Next [0] and is expected to enter into service in the 2030s. I'm not convinced the current concept will remain unchanged, since it doesn't exist yet and will probably evolve depending on Starship and other SpaceX projects success (not just technical, but also commercial). In parallel to Ariane 6 (and as a precursor to Ariane Next?) there are a bunch of European companies developing small launchers to test new technologies: Avio, HyImpulse Technologies, Isar Aerospace, MaiaSpace [1] (owned by ArianeGroup), PLD Space, Rocket Factory Augsburg and Latitude. Probably others I didn't hear about. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_Next [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaiaSpace https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/MaiaSpace