Update 7-25: Obama meets with Sarkozy.
The world is hoping that we've had our spell with the republicans and are coming to our senses. I hope so too.international herald: But right now, in French eyes, there's a single good American: the Democratic Party nominee, Barack Obama. His book, "The Audacity of Hope," is on bestseller lists. His face is everywhere, sometimes in socialist realist images evoking Che Guevara.
An online committee for his election has drawn all-star support, including the fashion designer Sonia Rykiel, the Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë, the writer-philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, and Pierre Bergé, the partner of the late Yves Saint-Laurent.
Out in the troubled suburbs, with their large African and Arab populations and broad mistrust of a political system that has produced one black parliamentarian among the 555 representing mainland France, Obama is an urban legend. In France at least, he has high-low appeal.
France is not alone in its Obama fever - German infatuation is scarcely less intense - but I think the French case says something particular about the state of American politics and global expectations.
