Pave: Obamania In France

Le jour 348 de Sarko

Le Monde reports France is ready to elect a black president. [Pause.] But not for France.

EN FRANCE, LE CANDIDAT OBAMA FAIT BATTRE TOUS LES COEURS
[CANDIDATE OBAMA, FRENCH HEART THROB]

26 avril 2008 (Le Monde) - Si les Français votaient pour l'élection présidentielle américaine, Barack Obama l'emporterait haut la main. Un très distingué Comité français de soutien à Barack Obama rassemble des personnalités telles que Pierre Bergé, Yamina Benguigui ou Olivier Duhamel, mais aussi des députés de droite comme Axel Poniatowski. Le charismatique Obama fait rêver les Noirs comme les Blancs.

[If the French voted in the U.S. presidential election, Barack Obama would win with flying colors. A very distinguished French Committee supporting Barack Obama brings together personalities such as Pierre Bergé [industrialist, socialist, 2007 Ségolène Royal booster], Yamina Benguigui [film maker/documentarian, socialist, member of the Conseil de Paris] as well as Olivier Duhamel [jurist, French constitutional scholar, professor, politician, editor, socialist], but also members of the right such as Axel Poniatowski [mayor of Isle-Adam, député for the 2e circonscription of Val-d'Oise, a L'UMP]. The charismatic Obama is a dream come true for blacks as well as whites.]

[Hat tip: ¡No Pasarán!]

What is so patently phoney about the Le Monde lede is were Barack Obama running for president in France, well, he wouldn't be running -- much less harvesting a majority of French votes.

The sizeable minorities of Maghrébins and sub-Saharan Africans in Metropolitan France have zero elected political representation at the municipal, regional, and national levels. Yet Le Monde would have us believe the French are ready to vote for Mr. Obama. [Pause.] Yes. As long as he stays in America.

See our earlier post here on the likelihood of Obamania in France.

It is shameful for France. I am ashamed every time I go to Britain or the US. When I tell people that such a huge minority [of French Maghrébins and sub-Saharan Africans] has no political representatives they are dumbstruck. And France is a country that presumes to give lessons to the world!

Zair Kedadouche,
former footballer, former advisor to the Jack Pack,
and author, decrying an electoral system
that shuts out French minorities
June 6, 2002 (BBC)

Remember until eight or nine months ago, we had an all-white government. France is in no way an example.

Christine Ockrent,
journalist, broadcaster, executive director of France Monde,
and author of La Double Vie de Hillary Clinton,
describing France's qualifications for lessons on race relations
PARIS February 26, 2008 (IHT/Bloomberg)

Here is a theory. Racism is endemic in France (and here and here and here and here). Anti-Americanism is endemic in France (and here and here and here and here). The French vote for a black American president indulges both prejudices. In the eyes of French bigots a black president would diminish America in way that France will never be diminshed, and French nativist contempt for French minorities could be fastened onto the more general French contempt for America. [Pause.] Let's see what the franchouilles do with that.

PFFT (What is this?): Mr. Obama clinches the French vote 5 (chez l'Amérique)/ 0 (chez la France) | Rayonnement français 0