French author Michel Houellebecq faces formal investigation under a €45,000 fine and up to a year in prison following a 2022 magazine interview.
The proceedings stem from a conversation with philosopher Michel Onfray published in the November 2022 edition of the magazine Front Populaire.
During the interview, the writer asserted that native French people wanted individuals of French origin to see a decrease in violence rather than assimilation. He said that Muslims should stop stealing from and attacking people or otherwise leave the country. He also rejected calling the great replacement a theory, describing the demographic change as a fact rather than a theory.
When entire territories come under Islamist control, I think acts of resistance will take place. There will be attacks and shootings in mosques, in cafés frequented by Muslims, in short, Bataclans in reverse.
Michel Houellebecq, via UnHerd
The Movement Against Racism and for Friendship Between Peoples joined the state in prosecuting the author as a civil party alongside the mosque organization.
While the Grand Mosque of Paris previously brought a separate legal complaint in 2022, rector Chems-Eddine Hafiz dropped the action after meeting with the writer, who agreed to alter particular passages. However, UMF president Mohammed Moussaoui and MRAP maintained their legal filings, with MRAP welcoming the decision to place the writer under formal investigation.
Defense lawyers Thibault de Montbrial and Louis Cailliez rejected the allegations in a joint statement, arguing that the remarks contained no call to action, whether explicit or implicit.
The incriminated remarks have no dimension of incitement, not even implicitly, and therefore fall within the bounds of freedom of opinion and expression.
Thibault de Montbrial and Louis Cailliez, defense lawyers, via Hungarian Conservative
Najwa El Haïté, a lawyer for the UMF, said that freedom of expression is fundamental but cannot justify everything, and that incitement to hatred does not fall within the realm of intellectual debate.
Houellebecq faced prior prosecution in 2002 after calling Islam the most stupid religion, but a Paris court acquitted him at the time. In his 2023 book Quelques mois dans ma vie, Houellebecq revisited the interview, describing some of his remarks as clumsy.
