In France, the situation is quite similar than other European cities : there is urban sprawl, it's much limited than in America, but it's still big enough for causing significant parts of population to be away from attractive bus or tramway lanes. And in this point I've the feeling that northern countries make more doing than us.
Let's take Toulouse, city that I know quite well.
The downtown is very old, quite dense (12,000 - 15,000 hab / km^2 I think), and has very
narrow streets and a few avenues.
Till the 1940s, the whole city was mostly contained in the old downtown. Then, it began to grow, along the main radial avenues, sucking old burg centers 3-4km away from the borders of the city centre (but still in the territory of the
commune — city administrative districts).
Various buildings were built at that moment : houses,
buildings up to 20 storeys, and even a whole
borough in "communist style".
But with the rise of the automobile ownership rate (mid-80's), sprawl began more and more extensive, creating boroughs more and more loose.
In fact there was
no policy trying to get a descent density in the whole urban area (there was not the will, nor the political/administrative tools enabling cooperation). Because the territory is very much parceled out, the growing of Toulouse concerned quickly the other
communes touching it. They made their possible to attract as much population as possible, regardless of the density because they didnt care. They just wanted to exten, and, good for them, the french liked houses. That leaded to this result : houses, houses, and only houses, like in
Plaisance du Touch, a commune in the suburbs of Toulouse.
In fact, apart from the old tiny downtown of these communes, the whole residential suburb of Toulouse loks like that.
That, plus the fact that big zones dedicated quite exclusive commercial activity and office emerged (eg.
Labège, with virtually no building higher than two storeys...) in the 80's strenghtened the role of the car as the main transportation mode. Other factors also played a role, being at the same time consequence and cause, such as streets fitting disadvantaging bike usage, the ring highway which is in some places quite close to downtown and turns itself into a urban expressway, or the fact that there is no place in Toulouse which the caracteristics of neerlandese woonerf or even looking at that.
Now, we have a urban area of about 830,000 people, about a third of them live in low density zones... And counting, since 10,000 - 12,000 people settle in the urban area each year. Of course, there are some progress (more and more mid-rise in new urban projects), but the balance is still in the direction of urban sprawl.
Consequence of that ? The public transports share usage is lower than 10%, which is pretty low, while the car has a big 65%. When a lot of money goes to the building of two expensive little Val (mini-metro) lines, which does not takes a square metter from road space, serves only Toulouse and not the whole urban arean, and prevents from investing into bus lanes for low density zones, how could it be better ?
And this scheme repeats in lots of french urbans areas. Montpellier is a bit this way ; Bordeaux too but willing to extend its tram to zones with quite low densities. Lyon and Marseille are even worse, especially Marseille. These situations are a bit different of course. For exemple : Lyon urban area gets good figures for car share usage (less than 50%, and decreasing), thanks to its pretty Metro+Tram system in the more dense parts. But the stretching of the urbanized area makes car trips being longer and longer, so that car usage is not decreasing.
So, OK, we would say that we are in a better position comparing to american cities. But urban sprawl is also quite a problem here, it wasn't well managed, and we're not out of it.