Une France islamisée issue ou impasse ? À travers Soumission de Michel Houellebecq

Abstract

Islamophobic work with an Islamophile hero? Michel Houellebecq seems to play on the opposition games in Submission, a work that foresees both political and social tension between secular and IslamizedFrance, in the context of the presidential elections in 2022. Behind the macroscopic conflicts, the author portrays a hero, a professor of literature, who tries to find religious enlightenment by following in the footsteps of Huysmans. As he fails, he canonly submit to Islamic rule. What does an Islamic regime in France symbolize in this novel? What does the hero’s failure to God and his submission to Islam mean? Is there still a place for belief in our time? In this paper, we will try to answer these questions by clarifying the political but especially religious and literary stakes of this novel.