Might Michel Houellebecq become the next Salman Rushdie?

In August this year Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times. The novelist survived the attack, to the outward relief of the West. Prominent figures from the world of religion, politics and the arts offered their unqualified support to Rushdie as he lay in a New York hospital, recovering from the 12 knife wounds to his body.   

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, whose city in recent years has been targeted on several occasions by Islamist extremists, tweeted her support for Rushdie, a writer she described as ‘inspiring and a free man’.   

The rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, Chems-Eddine Hafiz,published an open letter to Rushdie, in which he expressed his horror at the attack and declared:  

‘I am writing to you from France, the country of writers and artists, of openness and free conscience. I have the honour of leading one of its lanterns, the Grand Mosque of Paris, from which we spread to the whole world a message of peace, tolerance and brotherhood, that of true Islam.