You can watch the international press review live on France 24 at 9.10am, Paris time, Monday to Friday.

Unedited television script

It’s the end of the grand coalition in Germany. Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrat Party is to take power not with the Social Democrats but this time round with the Free Democrats. Let’s have a look at some of the headlines in the German and international press.

Der Tagesspiegel: The FDP hands victory to the Black-Yellow coalition

Rheinische Post: Black Yellow!

Hamburger Morgenpost: Black-yellow triumphant - SPD crashes - How will Guido become Germany?

International Herald Tribune: Victorious, Merkel to get her coalition

Merkel may now be able to introduce bolder economic measures. The Free Democrats favour lower taxes and fewer regulations on business.

However, Merkel’s party has had its worst result in 60 years so her standing is weaker. The Conservative blocks vote was down 1% from 2005 at 34%. Meanwhile the Free Democrats got a massive 15% up from 9.8% in 2005.

In analyzing what the election result will mean for Angela Merkel, the IHT says she faces internal opposition for a broad range of reasons. The leaders of two German states - Lower Saxony and North-Rhine Westphalia - have ambitions to lead to party. They feel that two many voters have been lost to the Free Democrats and that they could rally those voters back into the Christian Democrat fold.

She has also been criticized for alienating the Catholic vote.
Merkel is a Protestant from East Germany and West German Catholics – who often vote for her CDU party – were not impressed by her criticism of Pope Benedict XVI when he did not speak out immediately against a renegade English bishop who had question the Holocaust.

Wall Street Journal: Don’t expect dramatic reform in Germany

“There is heavy public skepticism about free market economics…Even the Free Democrat’s presence in government is unlikely to change the debate significantly. They are after all the only party that campaigned for reforms not based on padding the welfare state,” the Wall Street Journal notes.

To the Swiss Press which is extensively the arrest of Franco-Polish director Roman in Switzerland on rape charges dating from 1977 concerning a 13 year old girl in the US.

Polanski has already admitted having sexual intercourse with Samantha Geimer-  then 13, in the Hollywood Hills home of Jack Nicholson in 1977 where he was photographing the young girl for a fashion magazine. However Switzerland’s role in extradicting Polanski is causing a stir.

The Basler Zeitung: Polanski arrested – Thriller or Tragicomedy?

Le Temps: The astonishing arrest of Roman Polanski

The cooperation of Switzerland with the American courts is causing “incomprehension” and “consternation” according to this Geneva-based daily.

It was like “a bomb went off” in Switzerland, the paper says. There is speculation that Switzerland acted in order to please the US - authorities there have been seeking greater transparency in Swiss banking laws.

The Washington Post asks “why was it Switzerland of all nations – the country that traditionally guarded the secret bank accounts of international criminals and corrupt dictators- that finally decided to arrest Roman Polanski? “

Anne Applebum points out that the victim, now 45 has said more than once that she forgives him.

“To put him on trial does not serve society in general or his victim in particular…
If he weren’t famous, I bet no one would bother him at all,” she concludes.

The Daily Telegraph also focuses on the victim who wants the charges dropped.

Polanksi allegedly plied Samantha Geimer with drugs and champagne, took nude photos of her and had intercourse with her despite her pleas to be taken home.

Geimer has asked for the charges to be dropped because she does not want to talk about the story again or testify on the matter. “It was bad enough it happened, now I have to go through it every day of my life.”

The Daily Mail: Gordon Brown’s fury after being questioned by BBC over prescription drugs

BBC presenter Andrew Marr asked the beleaguered British PM about gossip that he is dependent on “prescription painkillers and pills”… “to get through”. Marr justified it by saying in the US, the President’s health is always under the microscope.

Brown was visibly dismayed – even shocked as he saw the question being formulated…He then went on to discuss a boyhood rugvy injury which cost him the sight in one eye.

The BBC is under immense pressure to apologize. One senior Labour source has described it as an “outrageous and disgraceful smear”. Alaister Campbell – the former Labour spin doctor called it ‘low stuff’. The BBC has said that they feel it was a legitimate question about the health of the country’s leader.

Le Figaro runs a story about plastic bags being phased out in Moscow’s supermarkets and shops. Apparently plastic bags were a major status symbol in the USSR. They were sold on the black market in the past. Often housewives used to wash out plastic bags and leave them out to dry in order to reuse them!