For Europe, Obama revives positive image of America's unique identity

Exceptionalism has been put to many uses. Some are called selfish, arrogant, parochial, ideological; others are grand, liberating, experimental. And they include everything in between. Strains include jingoistic patriotism and the Manifest Destiny often cited to move west and brutally civilize native Americans. They also embrace Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the Americans he calls "this almost chosen people," and the First Amendment's free exercise of religion clause. It is read into the civil rights movement as well as the US-led fight against communism. In Europe, President Woodrow Wilson's effort to create a League of Nations after World War I picks up the idea; European diplomats were not accustomed to the US president's push for principles that eclipsed national power-broking.

The late author David Halberstam popularized the concept in "The Best and the Brightest," arguing the origins of the contested Vietnam War were rooted in an Eastern seaboard elite's exceptionalist effort to block the Soviet expansion.

French intellectuals, particularly the Marxists in the 1960s, portrayed a symmetry between America and the Soviet Union in their exceptionalism. "[French president Charles] de Gaulle used to say the natural inclination in Europe is toward 'Russia,' which he never called the Soviet Union," comments Ms. Durandin. "He used to say America has no destiny, because it has no memory and no past, whereas Russia has a great history. But we see now a different strain in America."

Leading Paris writer Bernard-Henri Lévy saw two visions of America on Election Day: "The McCain-Palin duo regarded "American dream" as a golden age to rediscover. Obama sees it as a new age to be invented, a model ever in progress … a frontier to explore. In this sense, he is much more faithful to that pioneer spirit that is part of the greatness of America."

Enthusiasm – but nuance as well

To be sure, the Paris take on the American election is nuanced, complex, French. Debates include: Is the election a one-off brought by the economic crisis? Does a 53-46 victory signify a change of heart? Will an Obama administration alter the structures of Washington?

But the tone is different. Both the Gaullist right and the skeptical left are affirmative. The meaning of America to France's crowded ethnic banlieue, among Africans and Arabs, is noted by writers François Durpaire and Jean-Claude Tchicaya.

In the teeming black suburbs, Obama is "lived through as a compensatory myth," they find. "Deprived of any networks, not the sons of daughters of [elites], they see the ascent of that son of an African immigrant … as the symbol of a social mobility they do not experience."

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