Obama, je t'aime!

Come again, Monsieur Sarkozy?

After spending the summer in France and enduring hostility/mockery/disgust at my English accent and the typical "what were you thinking?" questions about the last eight years -- and only three varieties of Coca-Cola at the grocery store -- I'd venture to say most French people aren't too wild about Americans.

They do, however, love them some Obama.

On the brink of our most significant presidential election in recent history, it was fascinating to see how the French media was covering our political process. Particularly fascinating was the fervor with which the French support Barack Obama.

So why does a country so notoriously critical of the United States have such a crush on Obama?

In a Salon.com article, TIME journalist Don Morrison, who lives in Paris, attributes the infatuation to certain personality qualities the French perceive in Obama.

"This is a country that takes culture seriously," Morrison said of France. "[Obama] appears to the French to be somebody who values intelligence, education and culture. That makes him one of those idealized Americans that the French have always treasured, the ones who share the Enlightenment values that France did much to invent."

The French Support Committee for Barack Obama states that, as president, Obama would not only be the symbol of a new America, but also the symbol of new leadership, new tolerance, new progress in the entire Western world, of which France is a part.

During the summer, I asked my Parisian friend Jerome if he thought a black man could be elected president of France. He laughed. Then he said no.

I see France's interest in Obama as a desire to share in our change, our step forward, because France is not yet capable of taking such a step itself.  

With Obama as president, the United States would be France's flagship, and the country is not afraid or ashamed to praise our advancement and our change as its own.

It's an exciting time to be in America on the precipice of so much possibility. I found it equally exciting to be in France to witness just how much our decision this November matters on an international level.

I just wish I could've stuck around France longer, if only just to see how "lipstick on a pit bull" would be rendered in the native tongue.