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Kerry too French to sway adolescents

US presidential hopeful John Kerry needs to stop acting so French if he wants to win the race for the White House, a French-born, US-based consultant and medical anthropologist says.

“Kerry’s trouble is that he is simply not the common man,” Clotaire Rapaille, who’s been contacted by Kerry’s campaign team for advice, told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

In the wake of the US-led war on Iraq, which France opposed, the Democratic hopeful’s command of the French language, plus his background in France and Switzerland, could be a real liability among US voters, he said.

“Forget the French connection,” he advised.

“The French are thinkers - ‘I think, therefore I am’. Americans want somebody who is going to take action. All this association of Kerry with thinking too much and nuance and five-sentence answers is off-code.” He added: “American culture is an adolescent culture... In America, you have to be the common man, be able to make people think you are the common man.”

Rapaille, author of the forthcoming book “Archetypes of the President,” specialises in psychoanalysing cultures. His expertise is sought out by major US corporations, and he’s often interviewed in US media on mass culture.

Besides dropping the French connection, Rapaille suggested that Kerry take fewer holidays, start giving one or two word answers to questions - and do something about his wardrobe.

“Go to K-Mart, buy jeans and cowboy boots... Dress like you are going into a bar in Kansas to drink from the bottle,” he said. —AFP

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