Obamas enjoy family time, breathtaking Paris views as City of Light can't stop
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By Linda Hervieux
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS
Updated Sunday, June 7th 2009, 1:45 PM
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The world was eager to see one of its most photogenic families in one of its most photogenic cities. But most cameras got little more than a glimpse through the windows of an art museum.
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Parisians flood the street, hoping for a peek at the American First Family.
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The President and First Lady at D-Day celebrations on Saturday June 5. Aside from state events, the family portion of the trip was kept mostly out of the public eye.
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PARIS - President Obama lingered over modern art Sunday and enjoyed one of the best views of Paris before flying home, wrapping up a six-day trip that took him to four countries.
There was no sleeping in for Obama, as he, wife Michelle and daughters Malia and Sasha, arrived just after 9 a.m. at the Georges Pompidou Center, where the director escorted them on a private 2-hour tour before the museum opened to the public.
"It was very relaxed, very unofficial and very, very family," a spokeswoman said.
The Obamas took in everything -- three floors of art, including a world-class permanent collection that includes works by French masters and American abstract artists such as Jackson Pollock.
The family perused exhibitions dedicated to he Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky and the metal creations of American Alexander Calder, an abstract sculptor who invented the mobile.
A photographer who was with them snapped shots on the terrace of the trendy 5th-floor restaurant, Georges, with a panoramic view of Paris as a backdrop. The First Family waved to the crowd below from the tubes that count as walkways in the offbeat glass-fronted building, which opened in 1977 to much controversy for its inside-out design.
"He was very nice and so tall!" gushed a hostess.
Obama enjoys rock-star popularity in France, where cheering crowds gathered at each stop - rumored or otherwise - during the President's quick three-day visit.
"He respects people," said Gabriel Corbion, 41, a museum guard who, like most of the staff, wasn't allowed in to meet Obama for security reasons.
"He speaks well. A lot of people are good talkers but he's different. He'll follow up his words with action," Corbion said, referring to Obama's warning Saturday to take action if North Korea refused to halt its nuclear program.
But Corbion had one complaint. "But he's too handsome! The girls love him."
Obama left for the airport before noon, leaving Michelle and the girls to have lunch with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, his wife, Carla, and two of their sons.
Afterwards, plans included a possible trip to the Louvre and maybe some birthday shopping for Sasha, who turns 8 on Monday. They were set to head home on Monday.
Obama barely made time to see Sarkozy, who was reportedly annoyed the American turned down his repeated invitations, granting him only a 45-minute working lunch on Saturday before the two leaders took off in separate helicopters for Normandy, where they commemorated the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
"Obama refuses to play along. Business first," said the newspaper Journal du Dimanche.
Questioned by reporters in Normandy, Obama said his "tough" schedule, which took him first to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Germany, allowed little time for socializing, even though he was staying at the American Ambassador's residence a short stroll from the Elysée Palace.
"I would love nothing more than to have a leisurely week in Paris, stroll down the Seine, take my wife out to a nice meal, have a picnic in Luxembourg Gardens," Obama said.
In fact, Obama did have a nice meal Saturday night with his wife and three friends at La Fontaine de Mars, a popular restaurant near the Eiffel Tower, after a private one-hour tour of Notre Dame Cathedral, the city's most-visited site.
"They ordered off the menu, like all of our other customers," said the restaurant's owner Jacques Boudon. "He was wonderful. He was so nice to us."
The second floor was reserved for the VIPs, who dined over two hours on foie gras, lamb, steak frites and desserts of vanilla crème brûlée and île flottant, a concotion of baked egg whites bobbing in cream. There was wine, but Obama stuck to water.
Then he picked up the $325 check.
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