As a foreigner observing Denmark (not sure about the rest of Europe), I think Danes are actually pretty ambitious, but often in a non-commercial way. It's definitely not cool to slack off and do nothing, so there is ambition in the sense that there's a strong cultural preference to better yourself, do interesting things, produce something. Even if you have a full-time day job, you're not "supposed" to just watch TV in your spare time, but should be an active member of an organization, have projects, something. But it's perfectly acceptable (perhaps even preferable) for your ambition not to be primarily about making money. In tech, for example, DIY hackerspace stuff, media art, nonprofits like Copenhagen Suborbitals, etc., all carry at least as much cachet as the startup sector does.
Yes, same in France, you can't be doing nothing but being explicitly looking after money is very much frowned upon.
Meanwhile in the US people are happy to use yearly income as the scale to compare people. Which is certainly wrong: any nurse should be higher on the scale than Columbian mafia bosses, right?
