Election day

Daniel Johnson and David Lawday on Germany and France, in the NS:

The Socialist ego-trippers begin with Laurent Fabius, architect of his party's collapse on Europe. Fabius, a former prime minister no less patrician than Villepin, pins his personal hopes on taking the party hard left, untainted by the "coldness" of Blairism. This allows him, incongruously, to paint his rivals as rightists or cheerleaders for job-stealing globalisation.

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On the other elections, in Afghanistan. According to The Economist, 'the country is doing better than many feared'. The New Statesman has an article about a woman candidate.
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According to REUTERS (in the NYT), 'Chechen militants have killed six pro-Moscow police and wounded another nine, local media reported on Saturday in a major blow to Russian forces in the turbulent region. [...]  it is rare for Russia, which still has more than 100,000 troops in and around the region, to lose so many police in a single day. Chechen rebel Web sites reported that top rebel commander Akhmad Avdorkhanov died in a clash on Monday.'
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I've listened to most of the BBC's edited highlights of 'the debate'. Galloway's rants are quite sickening, straight out of the Stalinist handbook of rhetorical tricks - 'and the rest of the neoconservative gang' etc.(Update: the transcript is here - via Harry's Place.)

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Finally, the German elections: according to C4 News (Sunday), Tony Blair would prefer Angela Merkel to win. On a trip to Germany, he visited her first before Gerhard Schröder. Then, he has privately expressed his preference for her to win.