PARIS — Not many Americans traveling abroad over the past three weeks could escape some fairly unpleasant reactions to the government shutdown in the United States.

In the beginning, people seemed bemused, or sometimes smug: “Are you not the nation that is forever teaching the world how to behave itself?” Brinkmanship over the budget is not new, nor are Republican assaults on Barack Obama. So, many people simply sought an explanation from visiting Americans: how is it that a small band of zealous politicians can bring government to a halt? Can people really be that passionately opposed to the idea of bringing health benefits to millions who don’t have them?

But as it began to dawn on the world that the United States government might actually default on its debts, with catastrophic consequences for everyone, the smugness turned to anger and fear. “This is no way to run a country” became the gist of commentaries and conversations.

Officials who not so long ago would have thought it imprudent to criticize American politics spoke out. “Looking forward, it will be essential to reduce uncertainty surrounding the conduct of fiscal policy by raising the debt limit in a more durable manner,” declared Christine Lagarde, the French managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Pundits were far less diplomatic. Many found it astounding that American lawmakers could be so oblivious to the global consequences of their actions, and to the damage they were doing to the faith and credit of the United States. “The rottenness of modern Washington makes outsiders gasp,” wrote Simon Jenkins in The Guardian. “The pomposity of its architecture can no longer dignify the log-rolling, the gerrymandering, the lobbyists’ egregious power, the money sloshing everywhere and the partisan polarization that drips from every news program.”

Some of the more alarmed and outraged voices rose from China, the country holding the largest share of American debt. One commentary from China that attracted attention in Europe was by Liu Chang of Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, who called not only for the diversification of Beijing’s huge dollar holdings, but for a “de-Americanized world.” That, he wrote, would include “new international reserve currency that is to be created to replace the dominant U.S. dollar, so that the international community could permanently stay away from the spillover of the intensifying domestic political turmoil in the United States.”

From Athens — where an American default could have turned an unending economic crisis into catastrophe — Nikos Konstandaras wrotein the daily Kathimerini that Aristophanes, the master of ancient Greek comedy, “would have loved the idea of a group of lawmakers exploiting their position to abolish the state they are sworn to serve. For Greece’s ancient tragedians, the vain indifference, the ignorance of dangers caused by our character and actions, was familiar material.” The question, he added, was whether America is “the scene of comedy or tragedy.”

When the deal was reached in Washington last Wednesday, the world exhaled. But nobody believed it was over. “There is nothing more temporary than the defeats and victories in Washington,” wrote Le Figaro, the Paris daily. Even if civil servants are back at work for now, “America’s financial credibility is damaged and its democratic system has revealed to the world its gaping blockages.”

The questions abroad will continue; answers, however, are hard to find.