French supporters of Barack Obama
© AFP/File Boris Horvat PARIS (AFP) - The first of a string of committees formed in France to support Obama's presidential bid has decided it will not disband after the election victory, but instead work for change at home.
Called "The Movement", the 2,000-strong group in the eastern city of Lyon plans to set up a blog to track progress in getting visible minorities into positions of power and speak out against discrimination.
"Our friends are asking us to continue," said Patrice Schoendorff, president of the Friends of Obama Group. "There is a glass ceiling in France and that ceiling needs to be shattered."
Obama's historic election as the first African American in the White House is holding up a mirror to France, home to one of Europe's biggest black communities and the largest Muslim minority.
France's political establishment remains overwhelmingly white despite the appointment of two women of north African descent and a black human rights minister in President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
There is only one black member of parliament from mainland France.
French supporters of Barack Obama
© AFP/File Boris Horvat"Obama can be an example here," said Azedine Haffar, a former municipal councillor from a Lyon suburb and senior member of The Movement.
"He is a black American who worked in rough neighborhoods and through hard work, he was able to reach the top," said Haffar, who is of Algerian descent.
"It's true that I don't see a French Barack Obama emerging tomorrow, but my daughter is four years old, and she will have her Barack Obama. I am convinced of that."
Schoendorff, a 46-year-old psychiatrist born to a Cameroonian father and French mother, said the group will mobilise to promote minority candidates in next year's elections to the European parliament.
But Obama's French disciples are also training their sights on boosting diversity in the media, the entertainment industry and at the top echelons of business.
"We will be looking at how we can re-balance things so that everyone feels comfortable," he said.
Since Obama's historic victory, there has been a clamour for change from dozens of anti-racism associations, black advocacy groups and prominent figures from France's rich ethnic and racial mix.
Sarkozy's human rights minister, Rama Yade, who is of Senegalese descent, has described Obama's election as a wakeup call for France.
French supporters of Barack Obama
© AFP/File Francois Guillot"There is work to do and I think that the wind of change from Barack Obama's election is a call to mobilise and get concrete results," she said.
Echoing the grievances of minority candidates who complain they are parachuted in unwinnable districts, Yade said political parties must open up.
"We need political parties that are less conservative," she said, directing her criticism also at the governing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).
France, which abolished slavery in 1848, nearly 20 years before the United States, prides itself as a colour-blind nation that welcomes anyone who wants to be French and blend into the mainstream.
But promoting diversity in politics is a minefield with politicians from both the right and left opposed to the idea of special treatment for minorities through affirmative action or quotas.
Last year, Sarkozy had floated the idea of French-style affirmative action early on in his election campaign but dropped it after recognising it lacked public support.
There have been renewed calls for affirmative action, notably from the left-wing Liberation daily which said France's much-vaunted egalitarianism would remain "an unapplied principle" without measures to promote minorities.
©AFP