The eight French journalists murdered by Muslims on Wednesday had just published a cover story about a new novel that says France’s elites will embrace an Islam theocracy rather than let a nationalist party win France’s national election in 2022.
The French-language novel describes how and why France’s elite politicians, media and academics help the Muslim candidate win the run-off national election, and describes how “women abandon Western dress,” once the Muslim is elected president, says a summary in a literary magazine.
“Most begin wearing long cotton smocks over their trousers; encouraged by government subsidies, they leave the workplace in droves. Male unemployment drops overnight. In formerly rough neighborhoods, crime all but disappears. Universities become Islamic. Non-Muslim teachers are forced into early retirement unless they convert and submit to the new regime,” according to the summary by The Paris Review.
The novel showcases the increasing anger of France’s elite toward the popular, anti-elite, nationalist National Front Party.
A September poll showed the nationalist party would beat the ruling socialist party 54 percent to 46 percent in a head-to-head runoff election. In May elections for the European Parliament, the nationalist party won 25 percent of the votes, beating all other parties.
The National Front’s economic policies are left-wing compared to some of Europe’s other rising nationalist parties, such as the United Kingdom Independent Party, or the Euro Alternative for Germany party.
The new novel is titled “Submission,” or “Soumission” in French, and it was written by one of France’s most prominent intellectuals, Michel Houellebecq, who is hated by France’s left.
While touting his new novel, Houellebecq praises Islam. That tactic makes it difficult for Islamic and establishment to stigmatize his criticism of Islam as “Islamophobic” or “racist.”
“The Koran turns out to be much better than I thought, now that I’ve reread it — or rather, read it. … I feel, rather, that we can make arrangements. The feminists will not be able to, if we’re being completely honest. But I and lots of other people will,” he told one interviewer.
In 2001 he was formally charged with the crime of racism after he described Islam as “the most stupid religion.” He was acquitted by three judges.
His new novel describes why France’s elites would prefer an Islamic theocracy by describing the perspective of an unmotivated, sexually depraved, left-wing academic. The academic eventually embraces Islam because it allows him to have two wives — an old woman for the kitchen, and a young woman for the bedroom — and also to regain a spiritual purpose destroyed by the elite’s hostility to Christianity.
France’s aggressive secularism “can produce nothing, just emptiness and unhappiness. … I need to make that perfectly clear,” Houellebecq told his interviewer.
“Catholicism doesn’t work. … It seems to belong to the past [and] Islam is an image of the future,” he said.
“For people to convert is a sign of hope, not a threat. … They aspire to a new kind of society,” he said.
Houellebecq also slams feminism, saying it has reduced France’s birthrate and allowed Muslims to take the place of missing French children. “The thing that may rub people the wrong way is that I show how feminism is demographically doomed … [because] ideology doesn’t matter much compared to demographics,” he said.
The hatred toward ordinary people among France’s elite is also visible among elite U.S. institutions. For example, a few hours after French jihadis killed the 10 liberal journalists in Paris on Jan. 7, a New York Times article worried that the jihadi massacre would boost popular support for the anti-immigration, anti-jihadi policies of the National Front.
“The sophisticated, military-style strike Wednesday on a French newspaper known for satirizing Islam is sure to accelerate the growth of anti-Islamic sentiment in Europe, feeding far-right nationalist parties like France’s National Front,” said the lead paragraph of the article.