Continent still has a long wait to get its Obama

Montfermeil, France: Where is Europe's Barack Obama? Not only are droves of Europeans voting with their hearts for the US presidential candidate, many are asking when France, Germany or Britain will get a chance to cast a ballot for a leader from their own burgeoning "visible minorities". The answer: not any time soon.

Dreams clash head-on with reality in the grimy ghettoes and sophisticated cities of Europe. There is little sense that "our Obama" is about to bound over the well-guarded - and largely white - porticos of power.

"Obama is rather far away. It's a bit of a fiction here, a bit of a dream," said Kadar Mkalache, tending a stand at the weekly market in Les Bosquets, a tough housing project in Montfermeil northeast of Paris. Born in France 48 years ago of Algerian descent, Mkalache said he's a French citizen who doesn't feel French - "not at all".

Still, Mkalache, who has an 18-year-old son, said Obama "could bring a ray of hope". Discrimination is only one reason that citizens of immigrant origin are unlikely to soon produce a leader able to crack the system. Another is that the Old World is young when it comes to its minorities of colour.

In Spain, a magnet for migrants from north and sub-Saharan Africa, most visible minorities are still in their first generation. Elsewhere, they mainly go back three generations at most.

The changing face of some other countries, like Britain or France, often reflects their colonial past - their immigrants come from countries they once ruled, and colour barriers are formidable.

In Britain, minorities - at least eight per cent of the population - hold only 15 of 646 parliamentary seats. However, a black, Baroness Scotland, holds the post of attorney-general.

In France, where there are an estimated five million Muslims and millions more blacks, there is only one black lawmaker in the 577-seat National Assembly.

Activism

"Obama hasn't happened overnight," said Danny Sriskandarajah of the Institute for Public Policy Research in Britain. "It took generations of minority activism in the US to create this space and develop that sort of political acumen... which is largely absent from Europe."

With Obama, Sriskandarajah said: "We are seeing the maturity of minority politics". "There's no denying that Obama is a sort of pinup boy for the immigrant dream all over the world."