The French haven't given up, bless them. Peugeot still does the 508 and they have the DS9 and a new large Citroen in the pipeline (mostly for China, but they will be sold in Europe) which will be introduced in the next year or two. Renault still do some larger cars in mainland Europe too. To be fair, the French did have a credible history in large cars the 405, 406, 505, CX etc weren't exactly flops. Lancia haven't just given up on large cars, they've pretty much given up full stop... They sell one car in one country, but hilariously manage to sell quite a lot of them there (see night cub's figures, the Ypsillon outsells whole marques that sell ranges of cars in more than one state)

I think it's like Chico says, it's as much to do with brand image. Plenty of beer is swilled in Rüsselsheim but who exactly buys Insignias any more?