Submission and Decline: Houellebecq as Cassandra and Jester

The publication of Michel Houellebecq’s Submission (2015) coincided with the Islamist attack on the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in Paris. In addition, Western Europe, Germany in particular, was confronted with an unprecedented influx of migrants and refugees. Under these circumstances, Submission hit a raw nerve: Houellebecq projects a France in the not-so-distant future that is torn between a dominant far-right party and an increasingly confident Muslim party that succeeds in convincing voters beyond its core constituency to support its leader. Some critics took the novel as another example of Houellebecq’s qualities as a jester of French society, one who exaggerates and satirizes the fears of the far-right. Given the political and demographic developments, however, it would be too easy to dismiss the novel as an absurd fantasy or an entertaining jest. In light of jeremiads of professional Cassandras and historians, including Alain Finkielkraut, Walter Laqueur, and Éric Zemmour, Houellebecq’s novel succeeds in leaving the reader in a state of discomfort. Thus, I suggest reading his novel as the work of a jesting Cassandra who does poke fun at bouts of right-wing hysteria, but at the same makes readers see why they need to be more than “somewhat theoretically, a citizen.”