MutantScalper
Dogmeat
What exactly makes you think there are no european alternatives? There are/were several, but most of them never really gained enough market penetration because everyone wanted to be on facebook. The reason is simple, if most people are already on facebook, why bother with an alternative that has less of your friends. That's the same thing Google+ ran into. The small advantages of one network compared to the other are entirely offset by the fact that one network is already hugely in the lead.
Now, as for your reasoning, do you really think euro alternatives to facebook would be more ethical in how they handle data? I wouldn't join any of those just on principle alone.
I think a European FB, if done right, could gain popularity by being more secure and overall better. I don't really know exactly what it should be like, just that there really is nothing fundamentally great about FB and as you yourself said, nobody today wonders why you're not there. I think the tide is turning, big time. Would a Euro FB sell off the info of it's users? Hopefully not, but at least in Europe there could be legislation to govern it. With FB today there's very little us euros can do about it.