Prime Minister Blair last night suffered his first major parliamentary defeat in a trial of strength over the Terrorism Bill he introduced following the London bombing on July 7. After a rebellion within his own Labour Party, Parliament rejected Mr. Blair’s demand, backed by police chiefs, for the right to hold suspects for up to 90 days without charge. The House of Commons opted instead for a limit of 28 days.

This was payback time for rebellious legislators who have still not forgiven Mr. Blair for the Iraq war and his support for President Bush. Downing Street pulled out all the stops to win this vote. Mr. Blair’s rival and likely successor, Gordon Brown, was summoned home from Israel, thereby missing a meeting with Prime Minister Sharon, in order to rally his supporters to vote for the government.

Westminster is once again alive with gossip about Mr. Blair’s impending departure. He is alleged to be out of touch with his party and with the country. Having pledged not to fight the next general election but refused to say when he will step down, he is inevitably prey to such speculation.

Will Mr. Blair now resign much sooner than the end of 2008, which has been assumed to be the date penciled into his diary, enabling him to break Mrs. Thatcher’s record of 11 continuous years in office? Many in his own party cannot wait for him to go. And last night’s vote leaves his prestige irreparably damaged.

Yet Mr. Blair still has a full program of domestic reform to enact, with major bills on health and education in the pipeline. And he believes, now more than ever, that he is the best person to fight the war on terror.

For this reason alone, rumors of Mr. Blair’s demise are exaggerated. I believe he will soldier on, and if necessary call a vote of confidence to restore his authority.

The 90-day detention limit would have given police the time they need to gather evidence against suspected suicide bombers. In the light of the “French Intifada,” further pre-emptive measures may be needed to crush riots quickly.

For one thing is very clear: The Islamist war on the West is only just beginning. Australia has been shocked this week by an Al Qaeda conspiracy, the extent of which is still only emerging, to blow up two of its most famous symbols: the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge.

One might think the British Conservative Party, many of whom despise the French, would take more notice of events in a former British colony. But the good old Tories are still living in a fantasy world.

Dominic Grieve, who has led the Conservative assault on the Terrorism Bill, tries to make our flesh creep by hinting at “Guantanamo-style interrogation” in Britain if the bill goes through. Like me, Mr. Grieve studied history at Magadalen College, Oxford in the mid-1970s. There he was taught by some of the best scholars in England, though he seemed to have made his mind up about everything before he arrived.

By opposing the Terrorism Bill, however, he and his party ignore what history teaches us: that we must use all necessary means to protect civilization against those who reject the rule of law in the name of a fanatical ideology.

Last night’s defeat leaves Mr. Blair bloodied but still in the ring. He thrives on adversity, and is never happier than when he seems to be at bay. He is certain that his decision to stand firm against the Islamist violence now engulfing France will be vindicated. And my hunch is he is right.

The Islamist riots in France may have spread to Belgium and Germany, but have yet to cross the English Channel. Even so, the 12 million Britons who annually spend vacations in France, many of whom also own property there, are watching anxiously to see how long it will take for the “French Intifada” to burn itself out.

It was typical of President Chirac that he would try to exploit the riots in order to thwart the ambition of Nicolas Sarkozy, the interior minister, to succeed him. Mr. Chirac’s silence, like that of his prime minister and heir apparent, Dominique de Villepin, as the crisis escalated from suburban disorder to nationwide insurrection was inexcusable. When he finally condemned the rioters, he failed to offer Mr. Sarkozy the political support a security chief needs if he is to take tough measures to quell violence.

Instead, Mr. Chirac has sought to cast Mr. Sarkozy as the villain of the piece for having described those who shoot at police as “scum.” Yet, alone in the complacent Gaullist establishment, the interior minister had not only warned of trouble ahead, but attempted to forestall it by setting up a Muslim Council with whom to negotiate.

In practice, this council has suffered the fate of most “moderate” Muslims: to be swept aside by more radical leaders who talk the language of the so-called Arab street. When Mr Sarkozy spoke of rioters as “scum,” he was doing no more than echoing the majority of the French population, who do not want arson and murder to be appeased.

Social and economic policies designed to alleviate the problems of the Muslim underclass are one thing; buying off the Islamists to ward off civil war is quite another. Mr. Sarkozy seems to understand, as Mr. Chirac and Mr. de Villepin do not, that giving in to the rioters’ blackmail would destroy the prestige of the French state in the eyes not only of the Muslim minority, but of the angry majority too.

If Mr. Sarkozy is sabotaged by his own colleagues and the Gaullists are demonstrated to be as bankrupt as the Socialists they replaced, the National Front is waiting in the wings. The worst response to Islamofascism would be Franco-fascism. What an irony if Jacques Chirac were to end his career as the Marshal Petain de nos jours, resurrecting the politics of Vichy France.