Yesterday was Bastille Day, the French equivalent of Independence Day. Having just gotten back from Paris, I can say that Parisians would storm the Bastille all over again if it would get Obama elected.

I went to Paris with my husband, my mother-in-law, my four sisters-in-law, and my aunt (and 16 suitcases). We might as well have had "American tourist" plastered on our foreheads. When we got in the shuttle from Charles de Gaulle airport to our apartment, the idle banter with the driver quickly turned to the US presidential election in general, and to Barack Obama in particular. This was a prelude for the trip to come; without fail, both friends and strangers alike expressed the solidarity with Obama, and their hope that he will win in November.

It's no secret that France and the US have had icy relations since the buildup to the Iraq War. For the French, the prospect of the policies of George W. Bush being continued by John McCain are almost too much to bear. That in and of itself would be enough for French people to support the Democratic nominee. The fact that Barack Obama is the candidate only helps to reaffirm the promise of America that was tarnished by the eight long years of the Bush Administration.

That promise is nothing more than a dream in France, and for that matter, in Europe in general. It is almost impossible to think of someone of North African descent being a major party candidate in France, or of a South Asian or a Turk reaching the same pinnacle in Britain and Germany, respectively. For all of the talk of European liberalism, America boasts much greater levels of tolerance and acceptance of immigrants. That's not to say that things are perfect here - far from it - but it should give a sense of how bad race relations are in a place like Paris.

We all saw the cover of the New Yorker, which was replayed ad naseum on cable news yesterday. Well, let me leave you with a pic I took of a magazine cover at a Parisian newstand that had a decidedly different slant. The article title is the "Revolution of Obama", and we can only hope those words are prescient.

This loosely translates to "The Obama Revolution - His career, his ideas, his connections"