Do we like them?

Do we like Michel Houellebecq?

Our score: 4 out of 10. A big literary career and no clear record of kindness to set against remarks about Muslims that drew a lawsuit, so we land on the cautious side.

Houellebecq is France's best-known novelist abroad, and he built the career on discomfort. He published the poetic manifesto Rester vivant in 1991, won the Prix Goncourt in 2010, and was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur by Emmanuel Macron in 2019. The French literary establishment long sneered at him and couldn't stomach his sales.

The first big stoush was in 2002. After a 2001 magazine interview in which he called Islam “the stupidest religion”, Muslim groups, including mosques in Paris and Lyon, took him to court. His defence was that criticising a faith is different from insulting its followers, and a three-judge panel acquitted him of provoking racial hatred. Fair enough as a free-speech call, and a court agreed.

The nastier chapter came in January 2023. The Union of Mosques in France sued him over a Front Populaire interview with Michel Onfray, alleging discrimination, hate speech and incitement to violence. Reporting said the interview included a phrase that referenced the Bataclan attacks and suggested violence against French Muslims. He said the contested sections would be edited out of the online interview and left out of a forthcoming book. The Local reported no ruling, and the union said the edits did not end the harm.

On the harm test, that 2022 interview is the problem, because it goes past mocking a religion and touches on people. Set against it, the 2002 court win and his later move to cut the passages. I couldn't open reviews to judge how he writes women, so I leave that out. Where you land depends on whether you read the 2022 remarks as a provocateur's bad day or as a pattern.

Nothing new has turned up lately beyond the music. He announced an album of twelve songs, Souvenez-vous de l'homme, with texts he wrote and sings, due out on 6 March 2026 with composer Frédéric Lo. Ten concerts were planned at La Scala in Paris in April.

He is also against legalising euthanasia, and wrote in Le Figaro that its supporters distort the meaning of words. That is a contested political position, not a harm to a group in itself, so it doesn't move the needle here. Some will find it humane, others will call it harsh.