French Author Houellebecq Indicted over Comments on Muslims, Great Replacement

Top-selling French author Michel Houellebecq has been indicted for inciting discrimination or hatred following complaints from leftist and Muslim activist groups who filed complaints about his questioning of the ability of France to integrate a large number of Muslims and for asserting that the “Great Replacement” is a reality. According to French paper of record Le Figaro, a judge in Nanterre decided to indict Houellebecq on Tuesday with “complicity in inciting discrimination, hatred, or violence against a group of people based on their origin or their membership or non-membership of a particular ethnic group, nation, race, or religion.” The paper reported that the Submission author is facing prosecution over comments he made in a 2022 interview with French phliosopher Michel Onfray in his Front Populaire magazine. During the interview, Houellebecq suggested that areas which come under “Islamist control” in France will see violent uprisings from the native population, potentially including attacks on Muslim places of worship and cafes attended by Muslims, in what he described as “a Bataclan in reverse”, referencing the jihadist mass shooting at a Paris concert hall in 2015 that left 90 people dead and hundreds more injured. “And Muslims won’t just be content with putting out candles and bouquets of flowers. So yes, things can escalate quite quickly,” he added. The top-selling author went on to say that he believed native French do not even expect Muslims to assimilate into their culture, but at the very least to “stop stealing from them and attacking them”. However, he also suggested that the French would be happy if the Muslims simply left the country. “For many Muslims, the best solution at present is undoubtedly to return,” Houellebecq said, while noting that according to one of his Muslim neighbours at the time had explained to him that “deep down… it is impossible to remain a good Muslim in a Western country.” “One must read the Quran. The most accurate interpretation, in my opinion, is the Salafist interpretation, but not the jihadist one… I have the impression that the course of action most in line with the Quran, the best for a good Muslim, is to return to the land of Islam, and that this should be adopted if one’s financial means allow it. Otherwise, one should, as much as possible, remain apart,” he said. The Atomised author also defended the veracity of the “Great Replacement theory”, a phenomenon coined by French philosopher Renaud Camus which describes the importation of millions of non-Western migrants into European nations by globalist elites, who view people as interchangeable economic units rather than people with historical and cultural ties to their homelands. “I was very shocked that it was called a theory. It’s not a theory, it’s a fact… Renaud Camus is a good writer, there’s no doubt about that. So, he observed a great replacement or, to be more precise, the change in the ethnic and religious composition of the European population. It’s a statistical fact,” Houellebecq said. However, discussion of intentional demographic transformation in Europe remains controversial, with even far-left Moroccan-heritage Mayor of Trappes Ali Rabeh calling last month for publicly addressing the issue to become a criminal offence. This would potentially criminalise a large swath of the French population, with a survey from the Institut français d’opinion publique (Ifop) in April finding that six in ten French people believe they are being “progressively replaced by non-European populations, primarily from the African continent.” This sentiment is not without evidence, with a September report from the Immigration and Demography Observatory (OID) predicting that if immigration remains at its current pace, the native French population will become a minority in their own country by 2050. For his part, Houellebecq said that after communications with the Grand Mosque in Paris, he would have worded his answers “more carefully”. Nevertheless, he now faces up to one year in prison and a fine of €45,000 ($50,000). Following his indictment, the author’s attorneys said: “Michel Houellebecq contests the criminal charge against him. The statements in question do not contain any element of exhortation, even implicit, and therefore fall under the protection of freedom of opinion and expression. A prophet of doom does not wish for misfortune, quite the contrary. His place is not in a courtroom.” Follow Kurt Zindulka on X: Follow @KurtZindulka or e-mail to: kzindulka@breitbart.com