Paris in Obama's time

Sarkobama near Les Halles.

PARIS -- Parisians awoke last week to a familiar face looking out at them in an unfamiliar way: President Nicolas Sarkozy assuming the posterized posture of his soon-to-be-counterpart in Washington above the slogan "Yes We Can!"

Sarkozy’s own campaign posters bore a similar message when he sought the presidency in 2007: his "Ensemble Tout Est Possible" motto translates as "Together, Anything is Possible." But the Obamaism that appeared overnight on walls across the city's Right Bank -- without any indication of who paid for or mounted them -- does not appear to come from Sarkozy's own camp. Obama's refrain is posed as a response to a series of questions that suggest the viability of a European green-business agenda, which the posters claim would create jobs, produce clean energy and make businesses pay for their pollution.

If Parisian scaffolding is priming Sarkozy to become the new Obama, the city's kiosk is already treating the Illinoisan as something of a latter-day Josephine Baker, a translator of black music for a curious French public. Two magazines this week welcomed albums by African-American artists -- one of which appears to have no relation to Obama whatsoever -- by invoking the president-elect in their headlines. Le Nouvel Observateur dubbed singer Raphael Saadiq ‘s genre “La Soul Obama” as L'Express’s style supplement identified Tracy Chapman's latest release as "Al(O)Bama Songs."