MX has its own built in tool to make a bootable USB with persistence

There should be more deals when you click add services.

Understand on the latency possibly being an issue. I did see they have servers in France now. Maybe you could do some ping tests.

If you want something cheap check out RackNerd yearly deals. Last I checked they still have listings for black Friday and other old deals once you’ve made an account. I got a server for like $12 a year with 5tb monthly bandwidth. I have 3 servers total with them and haven’t had a problem for the 3 years I’ve been using them.