Nor is he the honorary European floating through the fantasies of French leftists – we need to clear that up if we want to avoid some nasty morning-after wake-up calls.

The fact remains that Mr Obama's election will affect us in at least three concrete ways, making his victory one of those improbable, incomparable moments that marka complete break with previous history. It is unmistakably an iconic event.

First, an Obama presidency will be a decisive turning point in dealing with the “racial question” in the US. Of course we do not think racism will actually disappear from our collective, national imagination. One only needs to travel around the interior of the country to observe that the black candidate's rise in power has had, as a corollary, the commensurate rise of a radical right wing that is nostalgic for white supremacy and for the good old segregationist times.