“Submission,” a book by Michel Houellebecq released today, is sparking controversy with a fictional France of the future led by an Islamic party and a Muslim president who bans women from the workplace.

In his sixth novel, the award-winning French author plays on fears that western societies are being inundated by the influence of Islam, a worry that this month drew thousands in anti-Islamist protests in Germany. In the novel, Houellebecq has the imaginary “Muslim Fraternity” party winning a presidential election in France against the nationalist, anti-immigration National Front.

“A pathetic and provocative farce,” is how Liberation characterized the book in a Jan. 4 review that scathingly said the novelist is “showing signs of waning writing skills.” Political analyst Franz-Olivier Giesbert in newspaper Le Parisien yesterday was kinder, calling it a “smart satire,” adding that “it’s a writers’ book, not a political one.”

National Front’s leader Marine Le Pen, who appears in the 320-page novel, said on France Info radio on Jan. 5 that “it’s fiction that could become reality one day.” On the same day, President Francois Hollande said on France Inter radio he would read the book “because it’s sparking a debate,” while warning that France has always had “century after century, this inclination toward decay, decline and compulsive pessimism.”

In an interview on France 2 TV last night, Houellebecq denied that he was being a scaremonger.

“I don’t think the Islam in my book is the kind people are afraid of,” he said. “I’m not going to avoid a subject because it’s controversial.”

Islamic France

Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel plan to discuss their respective countries’ struggle with Islamophobia, anti-immigration protests and the rise of Europe’s nationalist parties at an informal dinner in Strasbourg on January 11 organized by the European Parliament President Martin Schulz.

Houellebecq’s book is set in France in 2022. It has the fictional Muslim Fraternity’s chief, Mohammed Ben Abbes, beating Le Pen, with Socialists, centrists, and Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party rallying behind him to block the National Front.

Ben Abbes goes on to ban women in the workplace, advocates polygamy, pushes Islamic schools on the masses and imposes a conservative and religious vision of society. The French widely accept the new environment, hence the book’s title.

France is home to Europe’s largest Muslim population, with more than 5 million people of the faith out of a population of about 65 million, a number that’s been growing with children and grandchildren of 20th century immigrants. Very few Muslims have reached top-level jobs in France, and second-and- third- generation French people of Arab descent say they often face discrimination.

Provocative Houellebecq

Still the fear of Islamization has traction in France with opinion polls showing the anti-immigration Le Pen would lead in the first round of the 2017 presidential race. The party topped the Socialist party and UMP in last year’s European elections. It may score well again in this year’s local ballots.

In 2002, National Front Founder Jean-Marie Le Pen -- Marine Le Pen’s father -- stunned the country when he made it to the second round of the presidential election. He was eventually defeated when all political parties rallied behind his rival, the conservative candidate Jacques Chirac.

With his new book Houellebecq is being provocative -- again. His fame can be traced back to 1998 when he published “Atomised,” a nihilist depiction of two half-brothers, Michel and Bruno, and their struggle with living in today’s society.

In 2002, the author was cleared by a French court of inciting racism for saying that “all religions are stupid but Islam is the stupidest of all,” and that the Koran was “badly written.”

Dutch Film

For his latest book, Houellebecq borrows the title of a documentary by the Dutch filmmaker and author Theo van Gogh, who made “Submission” in 2004, criticizing the treatment on women in Islam. He was murdered in the same year by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim.

The book’s release comes in the wake of other publications by writers and thinkers dubbed “les neo-reactionnaires,” who take on issues like immigration, Islam and national identity.

One of them, Eric Zemmour sold nearly half-a-million copies of his most recent book, “The French Suicide” in which he says France is no longer a sovereign nation.

“There are parts of France that feel like a different continent today,” he told the BBC in December. “There are neighborhoods that are completely Muslim; at the same time we have the constant process of Americanization; our budget is controled by Brussels; we have no currency; our army has to follow Washington’s orders.”

His views are echoed by the anti-euro National Front.

Houellebecq is likely to find a large audience for his latest theme.