Mr. Assange is being hounded, the paper said, “even though no one can explain what crimes Assange allegedly committed with the publication of the secret documents, or why publication by WikiLeaks was an offense, and in The New York Times, it was not.”

The left-wing Berliner Zeitung wrote that Washington’s reputation had been damaged by the leaks. But the reputation of United States leaders “is being damaged much more right now as they attempt — with all their means — to muzzle WikiLeaks” and Mr. Assange. They are the first, the paper claimed, to have “used the power of the Internet against the United States. That is why they are being mercilessly pursued. That is why the government is betraying one of the principles of democracy.”

The Berliner Zeitung continued: “The U.S. is betraying one of its founding myths: freedom of information. And they are doing so now, because for the first time since the end of the cold war, they are threatened with losing worldwide control of information.”

Nicole Bacharan, a scholar of the United States at the Institut d’Études Politiques, said that in France, “There is a fracture between those who consider that American diplomacy is efficient and understands the world and has a positive influence and those who are distrustful of the objectives of that diplomacy.” What struck her most, she said, was that “pro-Americans have been harsher than the anti-Americans here.”

But Renaud Girard, a respected reporter for the center-right Le Figaro, said that he was impressed by the generally high quality of the American diplomatic corps. “What is most fascinating is that we see no cynicism in U.S. diplomacy,” he said. “They really believe in human rights in Africa and China and Russia and Asia. They really believe in democracy and human rights. People accuse the Americans of double standards all the time. But it’s not true here. If anything, the diplomats are almost naïve, and I don’t think these leaks will jeopardize the United States. Most will see the diplomats as honest, sincere and not so cynical.”

Even Laurent Joffrin, the editor of the leftist daily Libération, defended the right to diplomatic secrecy and said one must reflect on a “demand for transparency at any price.” States must have secrets, he said, so long as they have oversight from elected representatives. “It is a paradox to see WikiLeaks concentrate its attacks essentially on democracies,” Mr. Joffrin said. “And it is rather comforting to see that the secret exchanges of the great diplomatic powers are very little different in content from what they say in public.”

The strongest attack on WikiLeaks came from Figaro’s editor, Étienne Mougeotte, who called the publication of cables like the one listing sites considered strategic by Washington “a precious gift” to terrorists. The leaks, he said, serve “those who decided to harm American power, to destabilize the world’s large industrial nations, to put in place a maximum of disorder in international relations.”