Europe has a long wait for its own Obama

Blatant discrimination
"Obama-mania" has swept countries like Germany, Britain and France. But the minorities remain trapped in political infancy.

In France, the mother country of "liberty, equality, fraternity," discrimination against visible minorities is often blatant.

A United Nations independent expert, Gay J. McDougall, concluded in a statement from the U.N. media office after a visit to France a year ago that it was "widespread, entrenched and institutionalized," complicating any leap over the race barrier.

Despair among immigrants blamed on discrimination seeded riots three years ago in places like Montfermeil. Yet France is among European nations which have successfully integrated its white immigrants. Example: President Nicolas Sarkozy's father was born in Hungary.

"Such a path is unimaginable for a black in France," said Patrick Lozes, born in the west African nation of Benin and head of the Representative Council of Black Associations.

After taking office last year, Sarkozy appointed three women from France's visible minorities as ministers — Rama Yade, junior minister for foreign affairs and human rights, born in Dakar, Senegal, and two who maintain dual citizenship, Urban Minister Fadal Amara, of Algerian origin, and Justice Minister Rachida Dati, of Moroccan origin.

But progress appears to have stopped there.

French ... and nothing else
Lozes contends the crux of the problem lies in France's refusal to carry out a head count of its ethnic minorities, on the grounds that in an ideal melting pot, everyone comes out French and nothing else.

"We say there are no figures so there is no problem. The hypocrisy lies there," said Lozes.

Experts say the blockage is at least in part within the political system itself.

Obama "is what we are not capable of producing," said sociologist Eric Keslassy who studies discrimination in French society.

The problem lies less within the electorate than within the political parties, "an ultra-competitive world."

"The posts are well guarded and passed between people who belong to the same circle," he said.

Citizens of immigrant origin in poor projects like Montfermeil appear caught in a vicious circle in which the clubby political system leads to voter apathy — further eroding political clout.

"They know the French political system only too well to have any hope" for a French Obama, Keslassy said.

Other European countries, too, appear a long way from that day.

However, Sriskandarajah predicts that Britain, at least, will have its own prime minister of color "within the next couple of decades" — the time it takes to "grease the wheels of their party machine."

Yade, the French government minister, recalled in an interview with the daily Le Parisien that in her youth the only black she saw on television was Michel Leeb, a popular white comedian who imitates blacks.

Obama "is the incarnation of the American dream," the French black leader Lozes said. "Here, we will ask the question: 'Where is the French dream?'"

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