[mxfh]

Try the US-International Layout on US-QWERTY. It works well with German and French as secondary languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#US-International

The Windows version makes more sense to me, but I'm getting used to the Mac one too.

[ucs]

Indeed. On my bog standard US+International layout I can simply do:

AltGr + e = é

AltGr + p = ö

Adding Shift to the mix produces É and Ö, respectively, as one would expect.