Will Europe ever see a black president?

Paris - Black Europeans are delighted that Democrat Barack Obama appears poised to make US political history but few dare hope that one of their own will match his achievement any time soon. For some, Obama's achievement in becoming the first African-American with a real shot at the White House, has simply underlined how far Europe's minority populations are from winning a seat at the top tables of power. "Here the whole system gets in the way. In France, people are much more conservative, " said Haitian-born Massaryk Duclos, whose Paris store sells a range of T-shirts emblazoned with Obama's image. Nearby, a dreadlocked friend with an Obama badge pinned to his US-style baseball cap ahead of the November 4, US presidential elections snorted at the very idea of a French black candidate. "It's not the same culture here," he laughed. 'It's the parties that put the block on it'Europe has had large and growing immigrant populations since its long retreat from global empire in the aftermath of World War II, and countries like France and Britain have significant black minorities.Nowhere, however, are these communities well represented at a national level and there is no European figure of African descent with enough clout to follow in Obama's footsteps as a candidate for a mainstream party. Christiane Taubira, an MP from French Guyana who stood in France's 2002 presidential election and won 2,32 percent of the vote, said French society was ready for a black candidate but its political parties were not."It's the parties that put the block on it," she complained. European immigrants are less unified than the African-American community, which has existed since the dawn of the United States and forged a common identity under slavery and the struggle for civil rights, she explained. Thus, political parties have struggled to accept members and ideas from the former colonies and are more concerned with battles between party factions than with starting a painful national debate on race and identity." I think, very sincerely, given my own experience in 2002, that French society is ready to enjoy the beautiful adventure that Obama has offered to Americans," Taubira said in an interview in Paris. "That's not to say that there's no racism in France. There is racism, there are racists and there's discrimination based on racial prejudice. There is that, but I think that France is ready for this adventure. "The only black woman in France's current cabinet, human rights minister Rama Yade, agreed. "The French themselves are ready, but our political system would stop an Obama appearing," she told Le Figaro this week. "Not because he's black, but because he comes from a background of recent immigration. Here, integration is much more difficult."Taubira advised young blacks inspired by Obama's example to avoid communal identity politics and instead concentrate on changing the culture of mainstream political movements like the Socialist Party. "You have to take their leadership by storm to start a debate on diversity in France," she said."Not diversity in terms of compassion - 'you're different, you face discrimination, we like you' - but diversity. What is the French population today? What is the French people?" she said. "What is a national community that is no longer detached from its pluralist history? Because historic colonialism is not finished, whatever anyone says. The imprint of that history is there today and we have to accept that."Jean-Leonard Touadi, who was in 2008 elected as Italy's first and only black MP, said he thought the European left's love of Obama was based more on wanting end to Republican rule than on enthusiasm for racial integration.Asked whether he could imagine a European Obama, the Congolese-born 49-year-old said: "Going on how many blacks are currently in political parties here, we're going to have to wait a while."In Italy, for example, we still don't have an immigrant middle-class, and the current crop of xenophobic laws is going to delay this still further," he said, referring to the tightening of Europe's immigration rules.Survey after survey has shown that Europeans have vicariously enjoyed Obama's successes and most voters here hope to see him in the White House. A poll released on Friday by France 24 television showed French voters prefer the black candidate against his Republican rival John McCain by a factor of eight to one, Germans, Spaniards and Italians by seven to one and the British by five to one.But this apparent enthusiasm for a candidate running for office across the Atlantic, is not matched by any great success for minority politicians on the Old Continent. In multicultural Britain, for example, where eight percent of the population is from an ethnic minority, this translates to only 15 out of 645 or 2.3 percent of members of parliament. Nowhere in Europe has a candidate of African descent ever led a party with a serious hope of forming a ruling majority nor of providing a head of state. So will Obama's experience, whether or not he wins, reconcile Europeans to the idea that the children of immigrants are full citizens, and inspire those children to play a full role in politics? Not any time soon."I'm glad my daughter studies in the United States. There when she seeks a job she'll be judged on her competence, not her race," said Duclos, who is a regular visitor to America."There, in television series, you see black judges, doctors, police chiefs. Here, outside of sport, there are no references. All our cultural references here are white," he complained.