The Democrat got a rock star welcome for his speech Thursday in Berlin's Tiergarten park, but here he was to make no public appearances except a press conference after meeting President Nicolas Sarkozy before going to London.

There are few votes for any US presidential candidate in being seen to be close to France. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee in 2004, was pilloried by some conservatives just because he could speak French.

But the arrival of the Illinois senator has sparked much excitement in France, where polls mirror those across Europe to show he is the candidate most people want to succeed President George W. Bush in the November vote.

"Obamania" read the front-page headline Friday in the Liberation newspaper, which said that "the Democratic candidate fascinates the world and shows he has the makings of a president."

The election last year of the rightwing pro-US Sarkozy greatly improved US-French relations, which were poisoned by France's staunch opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq under then president Jacques Chirac.

Sarkozy told Friday's edition of Le Figaro newspaper that 46-year-old Obama, whom he met met in 2006 in Washington along with his 71-year-old Republican rival John McCain , was a "friend."

"Unlike my diplomatic advisors I never believed in Hillary Clinton's chances. I always believed that Obama would be nominated," he added.

Obama's national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said: "President Sarkozy has made the bilateral Franco-American relationship and the transatlantic alliance a centerpiece of his presidency, and Senator Obama looks forward to discussing how to build on these important initiatives."

Repairing realtions between the US and Europe -- strained over the Iraq war -- was a theme of Obama's Berlin speech, where he said that "the walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand."

"The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down," he said, echoing former US president Ronald Reagan's 1987 call to tear down the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin event took the White House race abroad in a way never seen before, and confirmed Obama as a global political phenomenon.

It came during a Middle East and Europe tour -- that took him to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and Jordan -- designed to show voters back home that Obama is a safe pair of hands on foreign policy.

But the Berlin speech was short on specifics, and Obama's foes will likely accuse him of empty rhetoric.

McCain, a Vietnam veteran and former prisoner of war who has long been an influential voice on foreign policy and defence, took a swipe at his rival on Thursday, visiting a German sausage restaurant in Ohio.

He said he would love to give a speech in Berlin, but only as president.

His spokesman Tucker Bounds accused Obama of launching a "premature victory lap."

"John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America, Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it," he said.

Obama is the favourite to win the election, with the latest poll from Fox News on Thursday showing that 51 percent of Americans believe he will triumph, with only 27 percent betting on McCain.

Europeans strongly support Obama's foreign policy goals including closing the Guantanamo Bay lock-up for terror suspects, fighting nuclear proliferation and facing up to climate change with an EU-style emissions cap-and-trade plan.

But, as France's Le Monde newspaper warned Thursday, "Europeans can fear appeals for aid from Mr. Obama," particularly a stronger military commitment in Afghanistan.

Obama was due to travel later Friday to London for meetings Saturday with Prime Minister Gordon Brwn and British ex-premier Tony Blair, before flying back to the US.

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