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Muslims denounce French writer

By Vaiju Naravane

Paris AUG. 22. Muslim organisations are up in arms against what they describe as "blasphemous writing'' by France's controversial, award winning author, Michel Houellebecq (pronounced wellbeck) and are taking him to court in another Rushdie-style drama.

The organisations which include Saudi Arabia's Mecca-based World Islamic League, the mosques in Paris and Lyon and the National Federation of Muslims in France, have accused the novelist, enfant terrible of French letters, of inciting hatred towards Muslims and Islam.

Mr. Houellebecq's novel Plateform, which failed to win the prestigious Goncourt literary prize for the very same reason, revolves around an attack on a tourist resort by suspected Muslim terrorists.

The main character in the book says he experiences a "frisson'', literally a thrill or rush of pleasure, each time a "Palestinian terrorist is killed.''

The novelist, Claire Gallois, who served on the jury of the prestigious Goncourt Prize, said that although Mr. Houellebecq's Plateform was the best written and most inventive novel on the shortlist, it was set aside because its contents were "unacceptable''.

France is home to over four million Muslims and the Huellebecq affair could exacerbate already existing religious tensions between the Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities. In recent months, disaffected Muslim youths are believed to have carried out a series of attacks on Jewish cemeteries, schools and other establishments as an expression of their frustrations against Israeli policies in Palestine.

Mr. Houellebecq's publisher, Flammarion, has tried to distance itself from the writer, sending a written apology to the Paris mosque and publishing a book by the Imam, Dalil Boubakeur.

Mr. Houellebecq is known to be a provocative writer.

His 1998 book, "Les Particules Elementaires" which has been translated into English as "Atomised'', is a vicious attack on France's 1968 student revolt and its leaders.

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