The French bestselling author Michel Houellebecq simply likes to provoke. Shortly before his 65th birthday, he once again caused a lot of criticism with Islamophobic statements and an alleged porn trailer. The press in France is appalled, for many it will soon no longer be bearable.
First, his interview in which he raved about a national uprising against the country's Muslims that would undermine France. Then a porn trailer in which Michel Houellebecq is in bed with a young woman. The enfant terrible of the literary scene, who turns 65 on February 26, is provocative again. Only this time he went too far for many. The French daily "Libération" even wonders if he has lost his mind.
Houellebecq usually causes a stir with his new novels at this time of year. Like in January 2022, when "Vernichten" appeared, in which he addressed the 2026/2027 election campaign in France, and in 2019 "Serotonin" about the depression of a typical Houellebecq character. This time, however, he is making a name for himself because of an alleged porn film that is scheduled to go online on March 11th. A trailer shows the author in bed with a young woman.
Houellebecq has already made several films, including "Thalasso" with Gérard Depardieu and "The Kidnapping of Michel Houellebecq". In it he plays more himself than he acts. But "Kirac 27" is the first to be considered pornographic. He is reportedly opening up about Houellebecq's sexual adventures in Amsterdam. "Michel Houellebecq. The Story of a Fall," headlined "Libération" after the release of the trailer. And the magazine "Marianne" asked: "Why is he doing this to himself?" Now his lawyers want to have the film banned and the trailer removed.
As the author writes on his homepage, the trailer harms his private life, his honor and, above all, his wife Qianyum Lysis Li. He has been married to the Chinese woman since 2018. In the trailer for "Kirac 27", the Dutch director Stefan Ruitenbeek tells from the off how the film with Houellebecq, with whom he had been communicating by e-mail for some time, came about. Accordingly, the author had told him that he had to cancel a sex tourism trip. There were enough girls who wanted to have sex with the star writer, Ruitenbeek replied. And have the whole thing organized with the aim of making a film out of it. Houellebecq himself could not be reached for comment.
Ruitenbeek cannot understand all the excitement. He had signed a contract with him, he told the weekly magazine "L'Express". He doesn't think it's ridiculous or unreasonable for his character to have sex with prostitutes. He himself talks about it in his books, he explained. As in the novel "Platform", published in 2001, in which he addresses sex tourism in Thailand.
Sex, prostitution and an alleged "Islamization of the West" are among his proven themes. In the end, of course, this is still fiction. But Houellebecq also expresses himself as a public figure. At the end of November, in the right-wing populist magazine Front Populaire, he raved about a national rebellion against the country's Muslim population. "If entire areas are under Islamist control, I think there will be resistance actions. There will be attacks and shootings in mosques, in cafés frequented by Muslims, in short: reverse Bataclans."
The 2015 terrorist attack on the Paris concert hall killed 90 people. In the long interview he expressed racist misconduct. The statements now have a legal aftermath for him. The Association of Mosques in France has filed a lawsuit against him for inciting hatred against Muslims.
Already in 2001 he was reported for "inciting racial hatred". His novel "Submission" was also described as Islamophobic. In it, France is governed by an Islamic President. The book was published on January 7, 2015, the day on which the bloody attack on the editorial staff of the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo" was carried out.
Where does his obsession with Islam come from? The newspaper "Libération" assumes that it comes from his childhood in Algeria, which he never talks about. Houellebecq was born Michel Thomas on February 26, 1958 on the French overseas island of La Réunion, the son of a mountain guide and a doctor. At the age of six he was entrusted to his paternal grandmother, whose name he took. After the divorce, his mother married a Muslim and converted to Islam.
The rest is known. In 1980 he graduated as an agricultural engineer and married. A year later his son Étienne was born. Then followed divorce, depression and his novel "Elementary Particles" about a cloned society, with which he caused an international sensation in 1998.
For France's intellectuals and politicians, Houellebecq is slowly becoming unacceptable. Because the writer, who was long considered a man of the left, has inexorably slipped to the right. More and more people are turning away from him.
After his volume of essays "Interventions 2020," in which he agitated against Europe and supported opponents of the multicultural society, the left-leaning cultural magazine "Les Inrocks" distanced itself from him. And now also the satirical magazine "Charlie Hebdo". With the megalomaniac interview, he overstepped the bounds, it wrote. In the name of freedom of expression, it had long supported the writer.
