The global system won (because convenience), but carte bleue worked fine for over 40 years. Many country still have their own standard (e.g. EC Card in Germany, Dankort in Denmark, etc.), but yes over time the Mastercard/Visa duopoly tends to win.

And as far as I know CB was not based on american technology (and the fact that they used chip-pin so early was kinda unique), do you have source to the contrary?