Shepherd's staff “à la Justin Bridou”, Henri IV… When Houellebecq prophesied Bayrou to Matignon and, mockingly, judged him “irreplaceable”

François Bayrou was already the prime minister… of Michel Houellebecq. On January 7, 2015, the author whom many call a prophet published Submission a political fiction novel in which he imagined the progressive Islamization of France. In 2022, the latter would have brought to power a man named Ben Abbes, from the party of “Muslim Brotherhood”brought to power by a coalition between traditional parties to prevent the rise of the National Rally. However, the condition for this support from the republican arc, combining the left, the center and the right, was the appointment of a prime minister from their ranks: François Bayrou.

Strangely echoing the excitement of recent days, Michel Houellebecq described in his pages the media excitement aroused by such an unexpected alliance. “The information broke, in fact, shortly after two p.m.: the UMP, the UDI and the PS had agreed to conclude a government agreement, an “expanded republican front”, and were rallying around the Brotherhood candidate Muslim. Excited, the journalists from the news channels took turns all afternoon trying to find out a little more about the conditions of the agreement and the distribution of ministries, each time attracting the same response on the vanity of political considerations, the urgency of national unity and healing the wounds of a divided country, etc.

“Return of François Bayrou”

“All this was perfectly expected, predictable; what was less so was the return of François Bayrou to the forefront of the political scene. He had in fact accepted a ticket with Mohammed Ben Abbes: the latter had undertaken to appoint him prime minister if he emerged victorious from the presidential election. continues the writer on page 150 of the novel.

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He then paints a mocking portrait of our current Prime Minister. “The old Béarnais politician, defeated in practically all the elections in which he had stood for around thirty years, worked to cultivate a lofty image, with the complicity of various magazines; that is to say that he was regularly photographed, leaning on a shepherd's staff, wearing a Justin Bridou-style cape, in a mixed landscape of meadows and cultivated fields, generally in Labourd. The image he sought to promote in his multiple interviews was that of the Gaullist man who said no.”

“He thinks he’s Henry IV”

In another extract where Michel Houellebecq continues to ironize about his return to politics, the mayor of Pau is also described as “perfectly stupid” through a character. The protagonist, François, professor of French literature at the Sorbonne and specialist in the 19th century novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans, meets Alain Tanneur, a general intelligence agent ready to retire. The latter then states: “What is extraordinary about Bayrou, what makes him irreplaceable is that he is perfectly stupid, his political project has always been limited to his own desire to access the supreme office by any means, like we say; he never had, or even pretended, to have the slightest personal idea; At this point, it's still quite rare. This makes him the ideal politician to embody the notion of humanism, especially since he considers himself Henry IV and for a great peacemaker of interreligious dialogue; he also enjoys an excellent rating among the Catholic electorate, who are reassured by his stupidity”.

“Carefully organized commercial operation”

Coincidentally, on the same day the book was published in 2015, François Bayrou was the political guest on Radio France. He then reacted to “three or four paragraphs” dedicated “to my modest person and who describes me as a loser to simplify”. “The subject we are talking about is a carefully organized commercial operation, hats off to Flammarion!”he castigated. “It’s designed to sell based on a proven recipe which is: let’s create a scandal, a controversy, let’s surf on the hottest, most aggressive subjects”he denounced.

Barely a few hours later, a first parallel interpreted by many as prophetic came true. While the writer had not imagined an attack in Submissionthe editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, which had made its front page on Houellebecq disguised as “mage prophet” aged and toothless, was decimated by the Kouachi brothers.