NON-US merchant accounts?

After auditing the European offers (for France and Austria), I found several providers (AtosOrigin for France and Mpay24 for Austria). Anyway, these providers cost more than any US third party providers (average of 10% per transaction + €0.5).

I was wondering:

• Would it be better to open an US bank account to be able to get a US merchant account? If yes, how? Who should we contact? Is this legal?
• Would it be better to continue with third party payment gateways and wait the opportunity, in a near future, to switch to a better EU offer (as soon as it will be available) ?
• Is there any other EU alternatives I am not aware of?

This question is, I guess, a redundant question to all NON-US businesses. Some countries may offer interresting alternatives to their customers but here, in EU, it seems there is still a lack of offers.
Maybe I wasn't able to find the good providers and some members here already found the beauty pearl.

Please share your lucky finds.

Hmm.. I'm not sure on how the USA reacts when moving money out of the USA, but I know they have damn taxes near 30-50% for bringing it in from banks. They probably have certain rules and such you'll have to look into. Easier to just have someone in the USA act as an agent that pays you and accepts payment.

I see, thank you for your reply.
Do you have any references for such agents?