US President Barack Obama received a rock star's welcome in the French city of Strasbourg today ahead of a NATO summit celebrating the alliance's 60th birthday, according to dpa. Obama then added to his popularity in Europe by telling an audience of young people that he would push for a nuclear-free world at Sunday's summit with European Union leaders. "The spread of nuclear weapons, or the theft of nuclear material, could leads to the extermination of any city on the planet," Obama said at a town hall meeting in Strasbourg. He went on to say that at Sunday's EU-US summit in the Czech capital Prague he would "lay out an agenda to seek the goal of a world without nuclear weapons." The US president spoke hours ahead of the two-day NATO summit, which was being held in Strasbourg and the German cities of Kehl and Baden-Baden. Earlier in the day, Obama was cheered and applauded by spectators when he and his wife, Michelle, arrived at Strasbourg's Palais de Rohan for talks with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy. Smiling and visibly touched, Obama greeted the spectators with handshakes and calls of "Nice to see you" and "It's good to be here." At one point, he even leaned into the crowd to kiss a young woman.
