Paris Grand Mosque files complaint against Michel Houellebecq for ‘provoking hatred against Muslims’ – France

The Grand Mosque of Paris announced Wednesday it was filing charges against writer Michel Houellebecq in a press release shared on Twitter, following remarks made in an interview with philosopher Michel Onfray, published in Front Populaire magazine last November.

The rector of the Chems-Eddins Hafiz grand mosque describes Michel Houellebecq’s statements as “unacceptable and incredibly brutal” in the press release and highlights some excerpts: “When entire territories are under Islamic control, I think that acts of resistance will take place. There will be attacks and shootings in mosques, in cafés frequented by Muslims, in short, Bataclan in reverse,” said the writer during his interview.

Michel Houellbecq also stated that “the desire of the native French population, as they say, is not for Muslims to assimilate, but for them to stop robbing and attacking them. Or, another solution, that they go away”. Faced with statements deemed “lapidary” which tend to affirm that “Muslims are not real Frenchmen”, the rector Chems-Eddine Hafiz announced that he had lodged a complaint “with the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Paris” for inciting hatred against Muslims.