France 'Wild for Kerry'

John Kerry's face is on the cover of the dailies and monthlies for sale at newsstands; he's talked about on the radio, fawned over on TV, his relatives are targets of the local journalists.

So it goes in France for the presidential candidate who is not George W. Bush.

The New York Sun is reporting that it may be his French roots, his adroitness with the language or his offerings of political olive branches to those who feel they were antagonized by the current U.S. administration before the war in Iraq.

Whatever the reason, the French love John Kerry, and it shows.

"People are going crazy. My phone is ringing from morning to night because everybody wants to know about Kerry," the head of the France chapter of Democrats Abroad, Constance Borde, told the Sun. "I'm even getting calls from French people asking if they can contribute to the campaign, and of course I have to tell them no. This is something I've never seen happening."

The French are looking for a U.S. leader they can feel for, especially after the drubbing their image, exports and tourism business took after Americans decided the French were ingrates for their non-support of a coalition to depose Saddam Hussein.

All across France, the Sun found people who wanted to talk Kerry.