France Places Michel Houellebecq Under Investigation Over Anti-Muslim Remarks

By Elena Vasquez

French prosecutors have placed Michel Houellebecq, 70, under investigation for incitement to violence and racial hatred over comments he made about Muslims in 2022, according to reports in Le Figaro, Le Monde and Agence France-Presse. The writer has not been charged. Prosecutors in Nanterre, a Paris suburb, initiated the probe.

The investigation could take months, if not years. In the French system, a judge-led probe is a significant step. Charges, if any, would come at its end.

What did Houellebecq say?

The remarks came in a 2022 interview with the French magazine Front Populaire, conducted by the philosopher Michel Onfray. Houellebecq described Muslims as a threat to France's security. He said Muslims could be subject to the kind of violence that struck Paris in 2015, when Islamic State terrorists carried out deadly attacks.

"I believe that the wish of the native French population, as they say, is not for Muslims to assimilate, but for them to stop stealing from and assaulting them, in short, for their violence to decrease, for them to respect the law and other people," Houellebecq told Onfray. "Or, another good solution, for them to leave."

Asked about the "great replacement" theory — a racist concept by the writer Renaud Camus holding that white Christian Europeans are being replaced by people of color, including Muslims — Houellebecq replied: "I was very shocked that it was called a theory. It's not a theory, it's a fact."

The Union of Mosques of France filed a complaint in early 2023 against Houellebecq, Onfray and the magazine's management.

How have his lawyers responded?

Houellebecq has since expressed regret, calling his comments "clumsy." His lawyers, Thibault de Montbrial and Louis Cailliez, reject the validity of any charges. They insist the remarks did not constitute incitement to violence or racial hatred.

"A prophet of doom does not wish for misfortune to occur, quite the contrary. His place is not in a courtroom," the lawyers said in a statement provided to Agence France-Presse. "Michel Houellebecq can only regret the growing tendency to litigate intellectual debate."

Is this his first legal clash over Islam?

No. In 2001, Houellebecq was charged with inciting racial hatred after calling Islam "the most stupid religion" in an interview. A Paris court acquitted him in 2002. The court said the remark was "without a doubt characterized by neither a particularly noble outlook nor by the subtlety of its phrasing," but was not a punishable offense.

Houellebecq, author of "Whatever," "Submission" and "Annihilation," has built a career on scathing treatments of race, gender and sexuality — generating sales and outrage in equal measure. He has kept a lower profile since the 2022 backlash.

Why has the case resurfaced now?

The probe lands as racism and Islamophobia return to the forefront in France after a deadly shooting this month in Trappes, a working-class Paris suburb. The suspect, identified as Kévin Tessier, 39, told investigators he targeted the town because it was a "den of Islamists," according to prosecutors.

Residents and officials in Trappes blame inflammatory language from the far-right National Rally. Its candidate, Marine Le Pen, currently leads polls to succeed President Emmanuel Macron next spring.

The Union of Mosques of France welcomed the investigation. "Given the concerning climate we face, in which certain types of rhetoric serve to prime minds for violence and can provide the ideological breeding ground for terrorist acts — as tragically illustrated by the attack in Trappes — we cannot allow such remarks to go unanswered," it said in a statement.

With no charges yet filed, the case now turns on whether a French judge treats Houellebecq's words as protected provocation or criminal speech.