French Watch U.S. Cast of Political Characters With Fascination

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/world/europe/france-us-elections.html

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PARIS — As miniseries go, the early rounds of the American presidential elections have had everything required to capture the attention of the French.

From the billionaire Donald J. Trump to the conservative Ted Cruz to the anti-establishment Bernie Sanders, the primary contest offers up characters who, as seen from France, could be summed up as “The Ugly, the Bad and the Good” — a list that skips over Hillary Clinton, seen here as an enduring fixture on the American political stage.

“The casting this year was amazing,” said Thomas Snégaroff, a history teacher and author of several books on American politics. “The French media adore telling stories, and here was one they couldn’t resist.”

What has made this year’s crop of candidates particularly compelling is the way in which they have fed a French fascination with America that swings easily from admiration to disdain.

Exhibit A, of course, is Mr. Trump, whose explosion onto the political scene shocked the French, just as it did many Americans. Mr. Snégaroff detected an ill-disguised delight on the part of some local commentators, who clearly relished Mr. Trump’s vulgar, boastful and insular remarks as confirmation of the “ugly American” stereotype.

“These traits allow the French to nourish a certain anti-Americanism,” he said. “Trump is a caricature, when we hear him say things like the French could have protected themselves better during the November attacks if they had had guns, or his idea of banning Muslims.”

Such comments conjure attitudes from earlier periods, “when people were saying that Americans are stupid, that they lack culture,” Mr. Snégaroff said.

During the Obama era, the French have had to set aside some of these stereotypes, marveling at the election of a black president who was both cool and cerebral, without the familiar American swagger.

And now there is Mr. Sanders, the Vermont senator seeking the Democratic nomination, who bills himself as a socialist — hardly a dirty word in France, where a Socialist government has been in power since 2012. The strong showing by Mr. Sanders in Iowa was greeted last week as a welcome surprise by the Communist newspaper L’Humanité, which reminded its readers that claiming to be a socialist in the United States is as good as calling yourself a devil.

Mr. Snégaroff said that after Iowa, he picked up Twitter posts from French leftists who hailed Mr. Sanders as a credible voice for radical change, something they see as lacking at home.

In the French view, both Mr. Trump and Mr. Sanders have been able to channel the anger and frustration shared by young and blue-collar voters who feel betrayed by the system and fear an uncertain future — a mood often attributed to supporters of France’s extreme-right National Front.

Seen from here, the spectacle of United States politics can be mystifying: the arcane complexities of the Iowa caucuses and the seemingly uncontrolled flow of money into political campaigns. The role of religion in political debate, perhaps best exemplified by Mr. Cruz’s courting of evangelical voters with vows to defund Planned Parenthood, is baffling for a country that stakes its identity on secularism.

And yet for all its flaws, the American system is showing itself to be lively, engaging and full of surprises — elements noticeably lacking in French politics, where the potential candidates for the 2017 presidential election include a former and a sitting president, two former prime ministers and a number of other familiar faces. “There is a lot of respect for a democracy that is capable of renewing its political class,” Mr. Snégaroff said.

With both major French political parties contemplating primaries this year, many here are watching the hurly-burly of the American experience with a mix of envy and worry, he said.

“American politics are a constant frame of reference for us,” Mr. Snégaroff said. “We either want to be like them, or we want to do the opposite.”