Michel Houellebecq feels like dizziness. He leans towards his friend Jérôme Coumet, mayor of 13e district of Paris : “Have you often had evenings like this, have you? » The Elysée and its gilding oppress the great national writer as much as they intoxicate him. Blue jacket, white shirt, red tie… On April 18, 2019, he adorned himself with the colors of the tricolor flag for his Legion of Honor ceremony by Emmanuel Macron. About thirty guests crowd the ambassadors’ lounge while waiting for the Head of State. The former President of the Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, the Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, the novelist Frédéric Beigbeder, or the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, amuse themselves in the middle of the ushers in livery, who offer drinks to the guests. The editorial director of Current values, Geoffroy Lejeune, and his journalist, Charlotte d’Ornellas, are there, too.
The writer fell in love with the duo, who offered him his “one” three times in just over a year. The two friends see in Houellebecq the bard of a disenchanted West; they love to hear him bragging regarding Donald Trump, Eric Zemmour, or ridiculing the European Union. To Geoffroy Lejeune, the author of Submission (Flammarion, 2015) has admitted in recent months that he has never been honored by the Republic. The boss of the far-right weekly reported the information to the Head of State’s “memory” adviser, Bruno Roger-Petit – a friend – who then passed it on to Emmanuel Macron.
This is a great opportunity to repair an injustice and at the same time to achieve a political coup. The chasm that separates him from the writer matters little. On the contrary. A few weeks following the “yellow vests” crisis, the former banker does not want “not to lose the link with popular France, which reads Houellebecq, listens to Jean-Marie Bigard and goes to Puy du Fou”, summarizes the palace in a curious maelstrom.
“You have chosen audacity”
Emmanuel Macron appears at the party. His speech – sixteen pages chiseled to the comma, remained until today confined to the closed doors of the Elysée – minutely quotes each of Houellebecq’s books. From this work, the President of the Republic retains the “something ambiguous, undecidable”, which emerges. The author, he says, is a living oxymoron. “Novelist of a gray world” and at the same time ” romantic ” ; “agnostic who desperately seeks faith” ; “reactionary” but also “visionary” ; ” conservative “ and « provocateur » ; “moralist who is not averse to obscenity” ; “anti-feminist” who would see “welcoming the advent of a world governed by women”.
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