Reaction in France, Germany, Italy and Kenya to Obama victory

Residents and expatriate Americans in cities across the globe celebrated US President Barack Obama's re-election to a second term on Wednesday.      

Kenyans in the city of Kisumu were celebrating Obama's road to victory on Wednesday morning, even before an official confirmation of results.      

Obama supporters Miriam Akinyi and her friends had been following proceedings in the US from a bar in Kenya's third largest city.      

They celebrated by dancing and cheering when Obama looked set to win.      

Most Kenyans consider Obama - the son of a white mother from Kansas and a black father from Kenya - as one of their own.       

Obama has five Kenyan half-brothers and a half-sister.   

In Paris, a chic crowd of American expats and Parisians celebrated Obama's projected re-election at an executive lounge bar off the Champs-Elysees.     

The venue - Pershing Hall - had brought together Democrats and Republicans for the election evening.   

But the Republicans were clearly fewer in number and when the projected results came in, they were drowned out by the cheers of Obama supporters.      

Tom McGrath, President of Republicans Abroad France, said he would be disappointed if Obama didn't change his economic policies.     

"If he views his economic policies as something of a success to be defended in the second term, then I think we will have a much bigger economic problem on our hands in four years time," McGrath said.    

In Berlin, Obama supporters celebrated at an election night party after preliminary results were announced.      

Brandon Hancock, visiting from California, US, said he was happy when the result was announced.    

"I'm very happy. It was a long time coming, you know with the long primary season. Just over the last year or more we were really sort of waiting to see what happened. So I'm glad, I'm relieved," he said.     

In Italy dozens of supporters of the Democratic party gathered at a Roman restaurant to wait for the ballot results.     

Democrats started shouting "Four more years", while singing, crying and hugging.    

The electoral night was organized by the Democrats Abroad group who planned to spend the entire night until sunrise on Wednesday to have the final results of ballots counted.     

Supporter Gretchen Bloom celebrated Obama's international background.      

"He is so much better than being a plain, old, white American man who is rich as Romney was, who does not stands for variety and who does not like the 47% who are not rich like him and who is for the 1%," she said.       

Milissa Grant-Castelli, from Missouri, said "there are still a lot of very wealthy people who funded Romney who are very much against Obama just because of his race. So when you've got that kind of hatred still going on, it is very disturbing to me as an American, as a black American especially."


APTN