6 Jan. () –
The head of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Chems-Eddine Hafiz, has withdrawn the complaint filed against Michel Houellebecq that he filed at the end of December after accusing the writer of “inciting hatred” in a French publication.
Houellebecq declared that “the desire of the French is not for Muslims to join society, but for them to stop stealing from them”, in an interview with the philosopher Michel Onfrai published in the magazine directed by the latter, ‘Front Populaire’.
“If entire territories really came under Islamist control, I think there would be acts of resistance,” said the writer, who was convinced that there would be a “Reverse Bataclan” in reference to the jihadist attack on the Parisian concert hall in 2015 that cost life to 98 people.
Shortly after filing the complaint, Hafiz agreed to meet with Houellebecq thanks to the mediation of the Chief Rabbi of France, Haïm Korsia.
In the meeting, the writer assured that the statements, the result of a six-hour interview, were badly condensed and promised to reproduce them in their entirety, already qualified, in a future publication, according to ‘Le Figaro’.
The rector of the Grand Mosque accepted Houellebecq’s statements to the relief of Rabbi Korsia, who considers that “both parties have been spared an unnecessary and damaging trial,” as he later explained to the French media.
