Wednesday, Nov. 05, 2008

France

The skeptics can go on repeating ad nauseam that an Obama presidency will change nothing about American hyperpower and the reprobation it elicits. Anti-Americanism will not disappear as though by magic, but its life will get harder. It will have to revise its arguments. Planetary shock wave? Another, geopolitical New Deal? One thing is sure — which places a heavy, metahistorical responsibility on the new President's shoulders: never will an American election have excited in the rest of the world a hope at once so crazy and so reasoned.

By Bernard-Henri Lévy
Writer and philosopher

See pictures of the world reacting to Obama's win.

See pictures of Obama's victory celebration in Chicago.