FRANCE:FOR ONCE President Nicolas Sarkozy spoke "in the name of the entire French people" in the letter he transmitted to president-elect Barack Obama early yesterday.
Mr Sarkozy hailed Mr Obama's "brilliant victory, which rewards a tireless engagement in the service of the American people".
By choosing Obama, Mr Sarkozy wrote, "the American people have chosen change, openness and optimism. At a time when the world doubts and is in torment, the American people . . . have expressed forcefully their faith in progress and in the future".
Mr Obama's election "raises immense hope in France, in Europe and in the world", Mr Sarkozy continued. The acting president of the European Council predicted "France and Europe . . . will draw new energy to work with America" from Mr Obama's win.
"You can count on France and on my personal support," the French president concluded.
The French government dropped all semblance of neutrality in the US election.
"We weren't supposed to say until now which candidate we'd chosen in our hearts and minds," foreign minister Bernard Kouchner told RTL radio. "Now we can say it."
Perhaps the most lyrical tribute to Mr Obama's victory was written by Laurent Joffrin, the editorialist at Libérationnewspaper.
"Hope at last! For heaven's sake, for an hour, for a day, let us not play at being blasé, careful or sceptical," Joffrin pleaded.
Not only are the French happy. "For the past few hours the entire world has felt better." A McCain victory, Joffrin wrote, "would have been a moral nightmare, a political horror film." Instead, "the ideals of Abraham Lincoln, the dream of Martin Luther King, the New Frontier of John and Robert Kennedy: four interrupted hopes, four prophets who were destroyed, live again, by the grace of this election".
Because of Obama's victory, Joffrin concluded: "For the first time in a long time the New World deserves its name."
The American dream was much evoked by French editorialists and politicians. Dominique Moisi, a leading political scientist, said: "America, of which Barack Obama is the living symbol, still makes us dream; no one in the world dreams of becoming Chinese or Russian."
Patrick Devedjian, the secretary general of Mr Sarkozy's UMP party, said: "The Americans have elected the American dream . . . The US has again become in the eyes of the world what it was on the day of its creation: the country of youth and equality, the nation where everything is possible, a model for those who aspire to democracy."
If there was a false note amid the French euphoria, it was an attempt by Frédéric Lefebvre, spokesman for the UMP, to exploit Mr Obama's victory to Mr Sarkozy's advantage. "America has decided to change, like France decided to change 18 months ago [when Sarkozy was elected]," Mr Lefebvre said.
He predicted that "Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy, hand in hand, will bring about the change that the world needs, particularly economic and financial".
In his letter, Mr Sarkozy praised Mr Obama's "exceptional campaign". According to Le Mondenewspaper, one of Mr Sarkozy's top political advisers was recently "embedded" in Mr Obama's campaign for a week so the French leader can benefit from Mr Obama's experience. "The [French] presidential campaign in 2012 could have a strong American accent," Le Mondepredicted.
The French lobby group CRAN (Representative Council of Black Associations) adopted Mr Obama's slogan "Oui nous pouvons" (Yes we can) for its election night party. "He's not only the first black president of the United States," a CRAN reveller named Olivier told French radio. "He's the first black president of the world. From now on people will look at us differently."
Frédéric Martel, who has just published Culture in America, called Mr Obama's election "a positive date in contemporary history, a sort of 9/11 in reverse".
Mr Obama was "the candidate of the world", said writer Pascal Bruckner. "With his family spread over four continents, he represents, all on his own, the genealogy of the human race."
The greatest advantage of Mr Obama's election, said radio commentator Bernard Guetta, was that it had reconciled the US with the world. "An America that has chosen to embody itself in a man of mixed race, with a Christian mother but a Muslim father, cannot be easily demonised as the spearhead of a Judeo-Christian crusade. No one can hate this America."