The Federation of Mosques in France on Friday filed a lawsuit against French writer Michel Welbeck for “incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence,” the federation’s lawyer told AFP.
The Federation of Mosques in France on Friday filed a lawsuit against French writer Michel Welbeck for “incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence,” the federation’s lawyer told AFP.
The complaint, the text of which was seen by Agence France-Presse, was filed before the Nanterre Court in western Paris against Stéphane Simon, the director of “Frone Popular” magazine, and against Michel Welbeck and the founder of the magazine, the philosopher Michel Onfray, as noted by lawyer Najwa Al-Hait.
The subject of the complaint is Welbeck’s statements regarding Muslims, which were contained in an interview with Onfray and published in the magazine “Frone Publicer”.
In the interview, the novelist considered that Muslims threaten the security of non-Muslim French.
In it, Michel Welbeck stated that “the desire of the original French, as it is said, is not for the Muslims to assimilate, but rather to stop robbing and attacking them. Otherwise, there is another solution, to leave.”
Likewise, he expected a “reverse Bataclan” to occur against Muslims, referring to the jihadist attacks on November 13, 2015, which were the worst ever in France and left 130 dead and more than 350 wounded, especially targeting the Bataclan theater in Paris.
The author admitted last week that some passages in the interview were “ambiguous”. He spoke about a new modified version of his initial statements, which is expected to be published in a book.
For his part, the head of the Federation of Mosques of France, Mohamed Moussaoui, said in a statement that “Muslims in France do not understand that Houellebecq understands, on the one hand, that the relevant paragraphs are vague, and on the other hand, he does not take any action to stop their publication.”
Mousavi added that “his proposal to replace it in the form of a future book does not put an end to its publication and does not protect Muslims from its repercussions.”
In turn, the French Council of the Islamic Religion, which organized a plenary session on Sunday, January 8, and whose interim joint presidency Mousavi holds, announced its intention to file a complaint against Michel Welbeck.
