Has Michel Houellebecq, France’s favorite literary bad boy, become an apologist for far-right terrorism?
In an interview with a niche periodical late last year, Houellebecq predicted that “native” French people would soon be taking up arms and committing “acts of resistance” against Muslims in areas “under Islamic control.”
“There will be bombings and shootings in mosques, in cafés frequented by Muslims. In other words, reverse Bataclans,” he said, referring to the Paris concert hall where ISIS terrorists murdered dozens on November 13, 2015.
Even by Houellebecq’s provocative standards, the statement broke new ground. Going far beyond his usual criticism of religion — his first big controversy was when he called Islam “the dumbest religion” in 2001 — the “acts of resistance” comment seemed to offer a nod of support to acts of violence against Muslims.
The backlash in France has been swift and broad-based. In addition to several Muslim organizations announcing that they would sue Houellebecq for inciting racial hatred, Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti came out to say that his comments were “unacceptable” as they “created hatred” and “went against his values.”
Even the president of Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Front party, Jordan Bardella, declined to defend Houellebecq, calling his comments “excessive” — while Caroline Fourest, a public intellectual who’s previously defended Houellebecq’s right to criticize religion under French law, broke with him over the “acts of resistance” quip, pointing out that such acts had already taken place.
Indeed, in the 25 years since Houellebecq first burst onto the literary scene with his 1998 novel “Elementary Particles,” violent far-right ideology has flourished across the West, inspiring plots and very real acts of terrorism. In 2017, Brenton Tarrant committed a massacre of Muslim worshippers in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 51 in an attack that was live-streamed on Facebook. Just this week, the trial of a far-right group accused of plotting to assassinate French President Emmanuel Macron opened in Paris.
“Can you talk about resistance when you are talking about racist attacks?” wrote Fourest in a blog post. “For once, the complaint from the Grande Mosquée de Paris seems reasonable.” (The head of Grande Mosquée or, great mosque, withdrew a threat to sue Houellebecq after a meeting with the author, but other organizations have maintained their complaints.)
The question for many people who’ve read Houellebecq’s books will be: Does he really believe acts of violence against Muslims amount to “acts of resistance”? And more broadly, should he face consequences — or should the comments be seen as a form of artistic license, the utterings of a creative master who is entitled to holding views, however extreme, about the world? Finally, has France’s tolerance for such artistic license — its resistance to U.S. “cancel culture” — failed in Houellebecq’s case?
For decades, the former civil servant has occupied a unique position in French society as a “grand écrivain” — one of the country’s preeminent authors with international renown. Twice awarded the prestigious Goncourt literary prize, Houellebecq enjoys the sort of regard once afforded to poet laureates and great writers in other counties.
When he surfaces, every few months, to write an article or grant an interview, his statements almost always make news. In 2020, when France was locked down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Houellebecq popped up to declare that — contrary to what many people were saying — everything would be “exactly the same” after the pandemic, only slightly worse.
That sort of deadpan cynicism, what many would see as an antidote to American idealism, has won him a following around the world. Houellebecq’s primary skill as a writer was to cast himself as an everyman, an average Frenchman who shares in the mediocrity of their existence and just happens to be a writer. “Anything can happen in life, especially nothing,” he quipped in his 2001 novel “Platform” — a classic Houellebecqism.
But in the past decade, Houellebecq’s novels have taken on an increasingly real-world, political bent. His 2015 book “Submission” imagines an Islamic party taking power in France following acts of domestic terrorism. If there was any doubt about how the author views such a prospect, he’s dissipated them in numerous interviews, doubling down on the anti-Islam content of his books.
Yet through all the uproar, over his anti-Islam comments or his praise of sex tourism, the author has never faced a major outcry from France’s literary establishment, or anything resembling a “cancellation.”
The interview in Front Populaire, run by rabble-rousing intellectual Michel Onfray, marked a new high-water mark for Houellebecq. Beyond the comments on anti-Islam terror, the author commented on the Great Replacement conspiracy theory — according to which Muslims are displacing white people in the West — to say it is “not a theory, but a fact.”
He adds: “Our only hope of survival would be that white supremacy becomes ‘trendy’ in the United States.”
In the wake of his interview, Houellebecq has done an unusual thing: he’s attempted to limit damage. After a meeting with the rector of the Grande Mosquée of Paris, who had threatened to sue him over the comments, the author said he would “clarify” his comments.
But the changes, published by Le Point magazine, leave his “acts of resistance” line intact. Instead, Houellebecq attempts to couch the entire paragraph in more hypothetical terms, and adds a phrase to say that such areas “under Islamic control” are not currently a reality, as police are still able to enter immigrant-heavy neighborhoods.
That’s a far cry from a change of heart or an apology. France’s literary world, which failed to blow the whistle on known acts of pedophilia by writer Gabriel Matzneff, has so far been largely silent on the affair.
Plus ça change.
POLITICO’s questions to Houellebecq’s publishers in France and the United States have yet to receive a reply.
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