Obama's whistle stop tour hits Paris

If it's Friday, it must be Paris - at least for Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for this autumn's US elections, just in case anybody out there didn't know.

And the French has an interesting take on his quick visit to the France and its capital the La Ville-lumière.

There'll be no repeat of the scenes and speeches that made the international headlines during his stopover in Germany.

Not because the man's not popular in France according to the national centre-right daily Le Figaro. Far from it in fact, and quite the opposite.

L'Obamamania is very much alive and kicking - perhaps too much so, says the paper, at least for his campaign team. It has a watchful eye on how Obama's tour is playing with the media and the all important centre ground of the electorate back home on the other side of the Atlantic.

His extreme popularity in France, suggests Le Figaro, could actually do him a disservice back home - where after all it'll be the votes of the Americans that count.

It's also an issue taken up elsewhere in the French media with commentators pointing out that Obama wants to avoid the trap of already appearing to be the US president when in fact he is still (just) a "presumptive" candidate.

So his visit is being limited to a two-hour meeting with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, followed by a press conference.

He's here apparently to "listen to Sarkozy" and to "learn from his experiences" according to one of Obama's advisors.

Top of the agenda between the two men is Iran and future (US) foreign policy decisions based on multilateralism rather than George W Bush's almost go-it-alone strategy.

For his part, Sarkozy is as usual playing a clever political game, welcoming Obama in much the same manner as he did John McCain back in the spring. Thereby ensuring as far as he's concerned that relations between the Paris and Washington get of to as smooth a start as possible, no matter who's in the White House after November's election.