Mistral's medium is absolutely good enough to help with a ton of coding tasks. I've personally used it and found it very helpful. If hypothetically the US cut off the rest of the world from their models Mistral would be a very useful model to continue to use.

Also, it's not like it's fixed in time, they are continually building more powerful models as well. Simply because you're in second place doesn't mean you quit the journey. Though, I'm sure the US has a huge vested interest of convincing people to "just quit and submit."

No. Thanks.