Houellebecq and Onfray interview in Front populaire stirs controversy

At the end of November 2022, the magazine Front populaire published a long conversation between the novelist Michel Houellebecq and the philosopher Michel Onfray. Front populaire is a sovereigntist-leaning French review founded by Onfray in 2020. The exchange ranged across politics, society and the state of France.

The interview drew attention for remarks by Houellebecq about Muslims and immigration. Among other things, he spoke of the possibility of attacks against Muslims in France, describing a scenario he called a "Bataclan in reverse", a reference to the November 2015 jihadist attacks on the Paris concert hall. Critics read the comments as hostile to Muslims and as a dangerous way of talking about violence.

Houbellebecq, one of France's best-known and most translated contemporary writers, has long courted controversy, notably with his 2015 novel Submission, about a France ruled by an Islamic party. The 2022 interview revived debates about the limits of provocation in literature and public debate, and it became the starting point for the later legal complaints that led to the charges now reported.