Just as Europe has been fascinated with Barack Obama, our Democratic Rockstar, they are fascinated with right winger Sarah “Pitbull” Palin as well. She has been called everything from a modern day “Joan of Arc” to a “Freddy Krueger” political nightmare.

Here are a few tidbits of what they’re saying overseas:

Sarah ‘Barracuda’ Palin, the fanatic of the heartlands of America,” screamed Le Point magazine’s website. The weekly described her speech to the Republican Convention “as a declaration of war [on the] Democrats as well as on the media and elites who dare to raise doubts about her ability to serve as vice-president of the United States”.

It also quoted a US army veteran, Bill Coll, as raising parallels with a French female hero. “The great leaders sometimes come from the countryside, from the most remote spots. Remember Joan of Arc! Sarah could be our modern Joan of Arc”.

Closer to the US, in Canada, French-speaking media were more hostile. “To paraphrase Martin Luther King, today we could say: “I had a nightmare,” wrote Lysiane Gagnon, of La Presse, a French speaking daily newspaper of Montreal. ”Worst is that this nightmare seems realistic, taking into account the age and the health of John McCain.”

She condemned John McCain, anointed as the Republican presidential candidate on Wednesday, for “being ready to give the vice presidency to an uncultured woman with archaic convictions, without any serious political experience, only to rally the fundamentalists. This is no longer impetuousness, but madness”.

In Britain, more attention was paid to Ms Palin’s success in combining career and family. “Almost overnight, Sarah Palin replaced Hillary Clinton as the screen on which we project our doubts and hopes about women and success,” wrote Nancy Gibbs, in the Times. ”In noisy public forums, everyone seemed suddenly certain of beliefs they used to reject: of course a woman can manage five kids and the vice leadership of the free world, said conservative defenders previously known for asserting a woman’s need to submit to her husband.”

She definitely has created a reaction. You either love her or hate her. It makes a great political soap opera, who knew Republicans could be sexy, but I’m still TEAM OBAMA all the way. Stay tuned when the candidates debate on September 26th.