” This kind of debate should not be settled in court. » This is how the writer Michel Houellebecq reacted this Thursday, January 5, after seeing the rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Chems-eddine Mohamed Hafiz, suspend his legal action against him. This decision was taken after the two men met this Thursday morning in a Parisian café, according to information from the “Figaro”.
Dialogue Houellebecq-Onfray: the great relaxation
On the menu: the remarks made by the writer who had led to a complaint from the Grand Mosque of Paris for “incitement to hatred against Muslims”, announced on December 28. In a joint interview with Michel Onfray in the magazine ” Popular Front “Michel Houellebecq had notably estimated that the “ethnic French population” don’t want the “Muslims assimilate” but “let them go away”.
Michel Houellebecq and Chems-eddine Mohamed Hafiz had a coffee this Thursday at 9 a.m., on the initiative of the Chief Rabbi of France Haïm Korsia who had offered to be a mediator in a published forum Wednesday in “Le Figaro”.
“The paragraphs concerned are ambiguous”
During the meeting, the rector was able to denounce “essentialization” what is Michel Houellebecq doing, which goes against ” [son] fight for the distinction between Muslims and Islamism”. The writer admitted that some of his remarks could be simplistic and he undertook to clarify his thoughts in his next book, which will bring together the entirety of the six hours of conversation with Michel Onfray.
” I am deeply attached to the text and I am willing to admit that the paragraphs concerned are ambiguous. I will therefore replace them, in the next edition, with paragraphs that better explain my point, and which, I hope, will not offend Muslims. “, explained the writer in a text written after the meeting.
The rector of the Mosque of Paris, who suspended his complaint, clarified to “Figaro” that he was waiting for the publication of the text to withdraw it definitively.
