Gavin Mortimer

Laurent Wauquiez has done the easy part. It was never seriously in doubt that the 42-year-old was going to win last night's contest to elect the new leader of Les Républicains, a position vacated by François Fillon after his humiliating presidential campaign in May. But now for the real test: challenging the hegemony of Emmanuel Macron. In the six months since he became the youngest president of the 5th Republic, the 39-year-old Macron has invaded centre-right territory. Not only that but he's made off with several high-profile Républicains, including Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire.

Six months into his presidency, Emmanuel Macron looks untouchable. He has conquered the unions, and his political opponents are a shambles – none more so than the Socialists. Just how divided they are was demonstrated earlier this month when a vicious war of words erupted within the French left. The cause was Islam, an issue that has been agitating Socialists for decades. When the first Socialist president of the Fifth Republic, François Mitterrand, was elected in 1981, his government was initially a friend of Islam. As the eighties wore on though, some on the left became alarmed at the demands being made of the Republic: prayer rooms in factories and the right to pray five times a day were particular sticking points.

Poland is cross about a cross. Specifically, the one that, last week, a French court ordered to be removed from above a statue of Pope John II. A gift in 2006 to the mayor of the Breton town of Ploërmel, the 7.5 metre-high statue depicts John Paul II praying beneath an arch adorned with a large cross. But the cross will be dismantled because it violates French strict secularism, enshrined in the 1905 'laïcité' law separating Church and State. The Poles are furious. Prime Minister Beata Szydło accused the French of 'censorship', warned that the removal of the cross was another blow to Europe's Christian heritage and would lead only to the further rise of 'values which are alien to our culture, which leads to terrorising Europeans in their everyday life'.

Let us give thanks for the straight-talking Rory Stewart. After last week's alarming comments from Max Hill, a QC who appears to believe British Isis fighters just need some TLC, Stewart, a Foreign Office minister, has given a more incisive assessment of the approach that should be taken towards the British jihadists still at large in Syria and Iraq. 'They are absolutely dedicated, as members of the Islamic State, towards the creation of a caliphate,' the Conservative MP told the BBC's John Piennar. 'They believe in an extremely hateful doctrine which involves killing themselves, killing others and trying to use violence and brutality to create an eighth century, or seventh century, state.

The paths of two French mothers, Madame Ibn Ziaten and Madame Merah, converged in a Paris court this week, at the start of the trial of one of their sons, Abdelkader Merah. In March 2012, another of Madame Merah's sons, Mohammed, shot dead seven people in southern France in the first of the Islamist attacks that are now a routine feature of European life. Even in France, which has suffered more than most countries from this wave of terror, Merah's rampage continues to haunt people. It wasn't just that he singled out three Jewish children for cold-blooded execution in their school playground but that he also filmed his murders before he was killed in a police shootout. The first to die was Imad Ibn Ziaten, selected for execution because he was a Muslim in the French army.

In January this year, Germany's vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel gave an uncharacteristically candid interview for a European politician. 'Salafist mosques must be banned, communities dissolved, and the preachers should be expelled as soon as possible', he told Der Spiegel. 'If we are serious about the fight against Islamism and terrorism, then it must also be a cultural fight.' Gabriel made his declaration two weeks after a lorry had been driven through a Christmas market in Berlin, killing twelve people. The perpetrator, Anis Amri, was revealed to have links to a radical Salafist preacher in the town of Hildesheim.

The latest attack in France couldn't have come at a worse time for the government. On Tuesday night, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and his ministers dined at the Élysée Palace as the guests of their president, a "moment of conviviality" before they all head off on holidays today. It's been a trying few weeks for them, what with Emmanuel Macron's plummeting popularity amid a series of PR disasters for his inexperienced En Marche! party and a spot of R&R is just what everyone needs. Instead, this morning brought news of yet another outrage in the French capital. Fortunately, casualties were light. Of the six soldiers struck by a BMW outside their barracks in the western suburb of Levallois-Perret, two are reportedly in a serious condition.

Having recently hosted Bono and Rihanna and taken centre stage during Donald Trump's visit to France, Brigitte Macron now has a new role to keep herself busy. The French President's wife was named last week as the godmother of the first baby panda born in a French zoo. Macron said she was 'very happy' to be asked. But, increasingly, France is not feeling her joy and there is growing resentment at her presence in the Élysée Palace. An online petition launched two weeks ago by the artist Thierry Paul Valette opposing the creation of a formal role for Brigitte Macron as First Lady has been signed by nearly 200,000 people.

What a forty eight hours it has been for Emmanuel Macron. On Monday, he gave his regal address to the National Assembly at the Palace of Versailles, a grandiose occasion during which the French president rivalled Tony Blair and Barack Obama for swaggering self-confidence. As Jonathan Miller said in the Spectator, it's hard not to be 'cowed by the absolute bravado of the young president'. Then, on Tuesday, Macron's prime minister, Édouard Philippe, presented to the Assembly his government's programme for the next five years. As is the tradition, the MPs were asked at the end of the general policy speech to give the PM their backing.