Obama's whistle stop tour hits Paris.

If it's Friday, it must be Paris - at least for Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee for this autumn's US elections, just in case anybody out there didn't know.

And the French media has an interesting take on his quick visit to France and its capital the La Ville-lumière.

There'll be no repeat of the scenes and speeches that made the international headlines during his stopover in Germany and certainly no address to thousands of people.

And that's not because the man's not popular in France according to the national centre-right daily Le Figaro. Far from it in fact and quite the opposite.

L'Obamamania is very much alive and kicking - perhaps too much so, says the paper, at least for his campaign team.  It has a watchful eye on how Obama's tour is playing with the media and the all important centre ground of the electorate back home on the other side of the Atlantic.

His extreme popularity in France, suggests Le Figaro, could actually do him a disservice back home - where after all lest we forget, it'll be the votes of the Americans that count.

It's also an issue taken up elsewhere in the French media with commentators pointing out that Obama wants to avoid the trap of already appearing to be the US president when in fact he is still (just) a "presumptive" candidate.

Foreign policy issues are not the major concern of the US electorate, the left of centre daily Liberation says. What Obama has been doing is to show voters that he has the international credentials and the stuff it takes to be the country's next president.

So his visit to France - which let's not forget currently holds the six-month rotating presidency of the 27-nation EU - is being sandwiched between Germany and Britain and is being limited to a two-hour meeting with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, followed by a press conference.

He's here apparently to "listen to Sarkozy" (no comment) and to "learn from his experiences" according to one of Obama's advisors.

Top of the agenda between the two men is Iran and future (US) foreign policy decisions based on multilateralism rather than George W Bush's almost go-it-alone strategy.

For his part, Sarkozy is as usual playing a clever political game, welcoming Obama in much the same manner as he did John McCain back in the spring. Thereby ensuring as far as he's concerned that relations between the Paris and Washington get of to as smooth a start as possible, no matter who's in the White House after November's election.