Expats On Barrack Obama vs Mitt Romney

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Americans living in France & French living in the USA – views on the election

The views of Americans living in the Riviera and Côte d’Azur and French citizens from the South of France – Azuréens and Varois – living in the United States, on the eve of the presidential election was reported by Nice Matin.

Will it be four more years with the Democrats and Barack Obama, who in 2008 became the first black President of the United States, or a new chapter with Mitt Romney and the Republicans, who at the time of writing were just in the lead in the opinion polls ?

Tomorrow, Americans will be choosing the leader they think is capable of boosting social mobility and reboosting the economy, with unemployment still unacceptably high and a widening gap between the haves and have nots.

On Wednesday, either Obama or Romney will be faced with a daunting task : to embody this modern nation, to be capable of fundamental reform to tackle future crises.  Not only the financial crisis that is destablising the country, closing factories and creating mass unemployment but the loss of morale and confidence which is damaging the ‘American Dream’.  The president will have to work even harder to restore hope and set the course for America’s future.

Jennie Lenzer, 51, who has lived in France since 1985 voted for Sarkozy and will vote for Obama “for the same reasons”.  This business woman, who owns three McDonalds franchises in Nice, is following the campaign closely as she did the election for the French President in the Spring.  “France and the United States have gone through one of the worst crises in their history; to want to put the blame on those who have tried to deal with the situation, and who are succeeding, is totally absurd.”

She has voted for Obama from her belief he can do the job he has promised, but also from family tradition : her father is a Democrat leader in Haywood, North Carolina.  If she had been concerned about Romney’s ‘victory’ after the first debate, she is now reassured  “The way Obama reacted after Hurricane Sandy will have scored him a lot of points.  It will have shown a man in control; Americans like that.”

More importantly, Ms Lenzer feels that the US is starting to recover : “9 per cent unemployment is still too much but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, thanks to Obama : in California and Florida, the states that have been hardest hit by the crisis, house sales are starting to pick up again.”  And that is what this Franco-American is hoping to see here in her adopted home, “You have to keep on hoping … ‘copy and paste’ is an idea of Obama’s.  If it can work in the States, it can work here too.”

On the other side of the ‘pond’, Jacques de Vernejoul, originally from Toulon, has been living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida since 1986.  He imports French products into the US.

This Varois now has dual nationality and is ready to vote for the second time for Obama.  Having spent 30 years across the Atlantic he says that the USA of today bears little resemblence to the country that he fell in love with.

“There is a huge gap between the rich and the people who live in abject poverty.  Today there are millions of ‘have-nots’ in America.  It’s scary – we can’t go on like this.”

For him, voting for Romney is not a solution.  He believes it will encourage Americans on a path of cynical capitalism – all out egotism.

“Many Americans just don’t see why they should pay for their neighbours.  They just don’t care.”

In the US “an employee could die from having diabetes, just because he can’t afford health care”.  Jacques de Vernejoul has seen it with his own eyes.  But the money is there “you just have to redistribute that wealth more fairly and continue to make social reforms.”  In other words “you have to change the mentality of the American people … and that is going to take generations”.

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If you are struggling in the current economic climate, why don’t you look at an alternative stream of income ?  Watch the videos and join me on the other side, whomsoever wins !