The languages varied from country to country, but the main message in European media coverage of the first U.S. presidential debate of 2024 was the same: Democrats and other President Joe Biden supporters were left in a “panic” about whether their candidate could win a second term.
The debate began at 3 a.m. Friday in most European countries, too late for coverage to make it into the print editions across the region. But in online editions there was a broad consensus – “panico” reported Italy’s Corriere della Sera; “panique” from France’s Libération; “panik” opined The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in Germany; “pánica” in Spain’s El Mundo; and just plain “panic” in The Guardian from the U.K.
The newspaper headlines appeared to be riffing off a post-election comment by David Axelrod, a trusted Democrat voice who is largely considered the architect of Barack Obama’s rise in 2008 to become the United States’ first black president, for whom Biden served as vice president.
