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Rabat – The Grand Mosque of Paris has filed a complaint against the best-selling French author Michel Houellebecq following his comments that Muslims’ “resistance” to the outrage of native French citizens means “there will be attacks and shootings in mosques and in cafes in territories that are under Islamic control.”
The Grand Mosque of Paris announced its decision to file the complaint against the writer in a statement shared on twitter on December 28.
?????????? | La Grande Mosquée de Paris porte plainte contre Michel Houellebecq pour les propos très graves qu’il a tenu au sujet des musulmans de France dans une récente interview écrite : pic.twitter.com/JS4NwLM2R8
— Grande Mosquée de Paris (@mosqueedeparis) December 28, 2022
The statement included a passage from Houellebecq’s discussion with Michel Onfray, which appeared in a special issue of the magazine “Front Populaire” in November.
In the discussion, Houellebecq remarked, “People arm themselves. They get guns, they take courses in shooting ranges. And they are not hotheads.”
He continued, “When entire territories are under Islamic control, I believe there will be acts of resistance. There will be attacks and shootings in mosques and cafes frequented by Muslims, in other words, Bataclan in reverse.”
The writer appeared to suggest that he was speaking on behalf of native French, arguing that the French don’t want the Muslims to “assimilate, but to stop robbing them and attacking them. Or, alternatively, that they leave.”
The Grand Mosque of Paris described Houellebecq’s remarks as “unacceptable and staggeringly brutal.”
The statement, which was signed by Hafiz Chems-Eddine, the head of the Grand Mosque of Paris, added: “Sentences that do not aim to enlighten any public debate but to fan the flames of discriminatory discourse, and acts.”
Given that Houellebecq clearly discriminates between “Muslims” and “the native French,” argued the Grand Mosque’s statement, he believes that Muslims will never be true citizens, and that France “must be extremely wary of them, because they want to destroy the unity of the country.”
The Grand Mosque of Paris is one of the largest mosques in France, a country with an estimated “5.7 million French Muslims, the largest Muslim population in western Europe,” according to Al Jazeera.
In a recent report, France’s National Consultative Commission on Human Rights (CNCDH) concluded that Islamophobia and hate crimes against Muslims have been on the rise in the country since 2019.
