A French judge indicted writer Michel Houellebecq Tuesday for comments he made about Muslim immigrants during an interview in 2022.
Houellebecq is charged with “complicity in incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence against a group of people on account of their origin or their belonging or not belonging to a particular ethnicity, nation, race or religion,” according to Le Monde.
In November 2022, the famous novelist told the right-wing magazine Front Populaire, “The wish of the population with French roots, as the phrase goes, is not for Muslims to assimilate, but for them to stop stealing from and assaulting them, in short, for the violence to decrease, for them to respect the law and people. Or, another good solution, for them to leave.”
He continued, further observing regarding the “great replacement” theory of white Europeans being replaced by non-European Muslims, “I was very shocked that it was called a theory. It’s not a theory, it’s a fact.
“Renaud Camus is a good writer [who promoted the theory], that’s beyond doubt. So, he observed a great replacement or – to be more precise – the changing ethnic and religious composition of the European population. It’s a statistical evidence,” Houellebecq said.
The percentage of immigrants in France has increased from 8.1 percent of the population in 2006 to 11.3 percent as of 2024 (or over 9 million people). Muslims now make up about 10 percent of the population, versus 6 percent in 2006.
The top two countries of origin for immigrants to France are the Muslim-dominated Algeria and Morocco, with Tunisia and Turkey also in the top 10, according to the most recent statistics from WorldAtlas.
