The USA government can't meaningfully punish Orange by punishing Orange-USA
So? What gives the USA govt the right to punish (meaningfully or otherwise) a French company?
because Orange can create dozens of subsidiaries
The USA govt's responsibility is to regulate things that happen on their soil. As long as those dozens of subsidiaries follow USA law, then there's no connection to the specific subsidiary (Orange-USA) that is breaking the law and being punished.
What you're suggesting is the corporate equivalent of jailing your entire family because your brother committed a crime, even though the rest of you are perfectly innocent (and extraditing your French grandmother to boot!)
As for long legally intensive battles... Why does that need to occur?
It doesn't. But when have you ever seen it not occur?
It isn't them meaningfully completely pulling out. And so the countries often can't accomplish their objective.
And that's the sticky point in the issue. The internet gives no fucks about national boundaries or localized laws. So governments are in a position where they either have to give up their sovereignty (well technically try to convince other nations to give up their sovereignty, but that certainly won't be a one-way street,) or give up their ability to censor random things that they don't like.. or I suppose a third option is follow China's plan and just break the internet all together -- but even with their massive firewall they aren't entirely successful.
The USA government is the government that can effectually regulate Google.
No, they can't. The USA government has no more control over Google France than the French government has over Google USA. The only difference is that the head decision makers are in the USA and can potentially be convinced (but not forced) to apply changes across their global operations. But then again, France could also call them up and try to convince them to do things globally.. the USA just has a bit more sway in that aspect due to (mostly) human aspects like patriotism rather than any legal rights.
If Germany or France or Spain wants a regulate the USA government is who they should be negotiating with, if they want their regulation to actually happen.
That would require a treaty and while I'm sure its not unheard of, generally speaking nobody would want to instigate a whole treaty negotiation process to deal with a single company's policies. Which is why, as I noted, things like the WTO exist.
Essentially, the WTO is an organization that has already been empowered by the US and French (and many other) governments to handle these disputes on their behalf, specifically to avoid the situation of dealing with direct government-to-government negotiations. (Well I'm sure the WTO does more than just arbitrate trade disputes but that's one of their jobs at least.)