The illustrious learned society has just elected a new member this Thursday: the former professor at the College de France and specialist in Proust, Antoine Compagnon.
The same day, we learn from an interview with Darius Rochebin soon to be broadcast on LCI, that the perpetual secretary of the French Academy, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, has another name in mind for the future.
No offense to Nicolas Sarkozy, it is neither Alain Souchon nor Francis Cabrel, but Michel Houellebecq.
The novelist who shocked twenty years ago is now adapted on France Télévisions, pampered by his publishing house and even made a knight of the Legion of Honor.
In a word, it has almost become academic.
Read alsoAntoine Compagnon, elected to the French Academy
“Michel Houellebecq at the French Academy, would that make sense?”
, asks Darius Rochebin.
“Not only would it look good,
replies the historian
.
But I want it with all my heart.
I would like Michel Houellebecq to hear this call.”
It couldn't be any clearer.
Hélène Carrère d'Encausse details her admiration:
“He is a visionary.
The notion of submission, he saw it as a person.
There had not yet been any attacks at the time.
His latest book,
Annihilate
, overwhelming with tenderness and humanity, looks at the world in which we live in an incredible way.
Annihilate
, which evokes among other misfortunes that of the third age, preceded by a few weeks the revelation of the scandal of Ehpad Orpea.
The equal of Victor Hugo
Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, who recently sounded the alarm in our columns about the use of Franglais, agrees with Michel Houellebecq's vision:
"He sees very well the disaster in which we are advancing (. ..) He is a prophet!”
At the risk of
"shocking"
, the Romanov specialist draws a parallel between Victor Hugo,
"total author"
, and Michel Houellebecq.
The presence of the author goncourisé for
The Map and the territory
will undoubtedly not displease the newcomer, Antoine Compagnon.
“No better documents on the present state of French society, literature and language,”
he wrote in 2019 in
Le Monde
.
Alain Finkielkraut should not sulk his pleasure either.
It remains to be seen whether Michel Houellebecq, who does not hate formal wear, will agree to apply to wear the sword.
The vision of the sexagenarian with his academician's blade in one hand, his cigarette in the other, is not lacking in comicality.
We also know that he nourishes an admiration for the owner of the place, Richelieu.