Default store view on frontend not working?

Magento 2.4.6

I have 3 store views for the same website, EN, DE and FR. On shop level the “Standard Store View” is set to DE for all shops.

However, when I open the site in a private window, its automatically set to FR. Deactivating the FR store view crashes the site, an error is displayed: store is inactive. I have to set FR to inactive though.

So, is there another way which store is selected by default in the store switcher? I need to have DE selected by default so I can remove / disable FR.

Thanks