Will Barack Obama be the next President of France?

As if the upcoming French election hasn’t been contentious enough, some liberal-minded French citizens are petitioning to add Barack Obama to the mix.

The “Obama 17” campaign is hoping to get one million signatures for their petition by March 15 in an effort to persuade Obama to enter his name for the 2017 French election.

The petition is an odd and desperate move by the liberals, who are nervous about the growing popularity of populism and nationalism presented by front runners Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillion.

The “Obama 17” movement gained notoriety this week when posters depicting Obama with the phrase “Oui on Peut” or “Yes We Can” were plastered around Paris calling for citizens to visit the website and sign the petition.

The site claims: “Barack Obama has completed his second term as President of the United States, why not hire him as president of France?… Barack Obama has the best resume in the world for the job… Because at a time when France is about to vote massively for the extreme right, we can still give a lesson of democracy to the planet by electing a French President, a foreigner.” (RELATED: Get all the news Google is blocking at Censored.news)

According to NPR, the petition has received about 27,000 signatures so far. One of the site’s founders told NPR that he thought up the idea for the campaign with four friends “after a drink.” Those must have been some incredibly strong cocktails.

One of the creators of the site, who requested to have his name withheld said, “We were thinking about French politics and saying that we were fed up with the fact that we all the time had to vote against someone and how it would be cool to be able to vote for someone we admire. We came up with Obama. I think the whole world would love to have him as president.” Perhaps they are unaware that Obama’s average approval rating is lower than that of Nixon or both Bush’s.

This is not the first time French citizens have petitioned for Obama’s leadership. There are two similar petitions on Change.org, but neither has gained as much recognition as this one.

There is a small fact, however, that in order to run for president in France Obama would have to be naturalized as a French Citizen before the election. Not that he’s ever had problem faking citizenship.

Thankfully these French liberals are somewhat realistic. The site creator also explained to NPR that Obama 2017 isn’t meant to rally support for any French candidate or party, it’s an expression of frustration about politicians in France in general.

“We don’t know politics,” he says. “We aren’t coming with real stuff. We’re just proposing something to make people think.”

Sources:

Obama2017.fr

Npr.org

Gallup.com