Notorious Islamophobic French Novelist Stirs Strong Criticism with New Anti-Islamic Novel

France's most notorious and internationally best-known novelist Michel Houellebecq insisted Saturday that his new book “Submission”, which envisions a future France ruled by a Muslim government, is not a far-right racist scare story.

“Submission”, which is released in French on Wednesday, has been the subject of intense debate in recent weeks, particularly for its portrayal of Islam.

In 2001 Houellebeck described Islam as “the stupidest of all religions”.

His latest book has stirred criticism from all quarters and been attacked widely by the French media and on social media. France’s Muslim community accuse the author of inciting Islamophobia in a country with Europe’s biggest Muslim population.

Leading the barrage is Laurent Joffrin, editor-in-chief of left-leaning newspaper Libération, who argues that the novel “will mark the date in history when the ideas of the far-right made a grand return to serious French literature”.

“This is a book that ennobles the ideas of the [far right anti-Europe and anti-immigration] National Front (FN) party,” he added.

Profound changes to French society

“Submission” is set in 2022, at the end of a hypothetical second mandate for unpopular Socialist French President François Hollande, who is beaten in the first round of a presidential election by far right National Front (FN) leader Marine Le Pen and the fictional Mohammed Ben Abbes, who leads France’s first “Muslim Fraternity” party.

The French electorate, wary of seeing the FN take power, vote for Abbes, a Muslim moderate whose election provokes immediate and profound changes to French society.

Women change the way they dress and leave the workplace in droves to look after families, solving France’s unemployment problem, while the book asserts that the resulting increased conversion to Islam kills freedom of thought in an increasingly patriarchal society.

In a long interview with France Info (in English on the Paris Review), Houellebecq insisted his novel was not right-wing “provocation”.

“I accelerate history, but no, I can’t say that the book is a provocation—if that means saying things I consider fundamentally untrue just to get on people’s nerves,” Houellebecq said. “I condense an evolution that is, in my opinion, realistic.”

“Yes, the book has a scary side. I use scare tactics,” he added. “Actually, it’s not clear what we are meant to be afraid of, [white far-right] nativists or Muslims. I leave that unresolved.”