Dominique Moïsi had a syrupy op-ed in the Financial Times earlier in the week in which he argued that Barack Obama holds a mirror for the French in the sense that he shows them what they want to their own immigrants and blacks to become. Sugary excerpt:
In France, the only other country in the world that sees itself imbued with a universal message, the US has, at least since the second world war, acted as a mirror reflecting the country's deepest fears and hopes. The huge audience that gathered last week at the invitation of a "pro-Obama French committee" in the main amphitheatre of the Institute of Political Studies in Paris expressed, of course, a rejection of the Bush years. But it translated above all a longing for the return of an America capable of constituting once again a source of hope and no longer a cause of fear for the world - an America that would be admired for its recovered essence and not loathed for its abysmal performances.
This America is of course incarnated by Mr Obama. In symbolic terms, the fact that, in the US, black could have become the "colour of hope" is a source of both French admiration for America and self-examination for France, a country that has yet to come to terms with its colonial heritage. It is therefore logical that two questions dominated the pro-Obama debate in Paris, a debate from which foreign policy considerations were largely absent - as if, in the minds of the French gathered there, America the model was already prevailing over America the actor.
Moïsi blinded by his enthusiasm is unable to see the whole picture, which shows that the French love Barack Obama because he is a empty slate that has become a symbol. Obama is like a Hollywood star not an American politician in the sense that the French don’t know anything about his politics, his policies, his ideology, or even who he is but loves his acting and the role that he is playing, the part of the black man who is going to change America and make it more open to the world. The French love Barack Obama like they love Woody Allen. Americans are still the best at selling universal dreams and big ideas like the one that one man can redeem a country and make it less unFrench, Bushlike, more civilized, and thus, more open to the world. The crucial point is that Barack Obama is loved like so many French love (loved) Rachida Dati and Rama Yade (who have become less popular when they started to be less symbolic and to play a role in partisan politics), the minorities who are part of the Fillon the Sarkozy’s government. He is loved because he is attractive, photogenic, can give great speeches and great interviews. Obama is loved because in both France and America, it is a lot easier to love minorities when they become a symbol. People are “different” become hip and leaders of a movement when they choose to become all things to all people by reassuring about their so-called shameful past. They do so by emphasizing the fact that their success is an unbelievable dream, which their country and its citizen should be proud of and by avoiding the nits and grits of politics by cultivating the appearance to be above its “dirtiness” and accepting to become celebrities.
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