Pining for Castro

The French are. Birds of the same feather, and all that.

Vilified by opponents as a totalitarian dictator, Castro is admired in many Third World nations for standing up to the United States and providing free education and health care.

Castro was greeted by crowds like a rock star in Argentina this month. Anti-globalization youths see him as a hero, along with revolutionary Che Guevara. "Fidel and Che are symbols of socialist ideals, equality and solidarity, lost in today's capitalist world," said Jose Fierro, a teacher from Latronquiere in Southern France. "Young people want to believe it is possible," he said, while visiting earlier this month Castro's hide-out atop the Sierra Maestra mountains.