Somehow it doesn't work for me, bypassing the launcher gives me an english login screen (it should be french) then sends me to a server screen with only one UNNAMED server. When i try to select it, it freezes the game
Not sure how it works on the European servers, sorry.
Send a shortcut of the "CityofHeroes.exe" file in the game directory to the desktop. Right click the shortcut and change the Target by adding [SPACE]-project coh at the end of the line.