This long fiction (736 pages) by the most influential French novelist in the world, to be published on January 7, should not fail to provoke exegesis and political debates.

Houellebecq had proven, in particular with "Submission" in 2015 (released on the day of the Charlie Hebdo attack), that he loves anticipation, by imagining the election of a President of the Muslim Republic.

Never named in "Annihilate", Emmanuel Macron is very recognizable when a communications advisor describes him as "a magnificent political animal", always sparkling "since the beginning of his meteoric rise".

He ruled a "declining" country plagued by inequality, the slow death of small towns and rural areas, and persistent unemployment.

"The gap between the ruling classes and the population had reached an unprecedented level", alarms the narrator.

In 2027, the left hardly exists, the National Rally is still strong in the first round but struggling in the second, and the person of Eric Zemmour attracts only hatred or admiration.

All these elements are reminiscent of 2022.

"Annihilate" is interested in a tandem at the heart of this campaign, the Minister of the Economy Bruno Juge, and his special advisor Paul Raison.

Disillusioned protagonist

This 49-year-old man, servant of the State and of the presidential majority, in an even mood although plunged into an endless marital crisis, disillusioned by his own fatalism and his conscious taste for bourgeois comfort, will be the protagonist of the novel .

The character of Bruno Juge, "probably the greatest Minister of the Economy since Colbert", recalls a certain Bruno occupying the same functions, Bruno Le Maire.

The "real" minister is a personal friend of the writer, saying he is "very close" to him.

At the end of October, he had revealed in front of an audience of industrialists that the upcoming novel would defend the industry.

The French Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire on the steps of the Elysée Palace in Paris, December 22, 2021 Ludovic MARIN AFP

It is indeed one of the themes of "Annihilate", at its beginning especially where the action of Bruno Juge is praised, for example "its most impressive success": to revive the Citroën car brand, nationalized in fact and reoriented towards the high end.

Other oracles: on television Cyril Hanouna has disappeared, victim of a dark legal case, and Michel Drucker has finally retired.

Jean-Marie Le Pen is still alive, at almost 99 years old, and his daughter Marine leaves room for younger than herself for this 2027 presidential election. Global warming makes summers very long.

Islamist terrorism is less threatening on French territory and other movements have supplanted it in political violence.

"Good feelings"

But "Annihilate", which will be released in the midst of the resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic, is above all a great novel on issues of health, medicine and end of life.

Has the Covid been defeated in 2027, or is it just a virus that we never talk about, like the flu?

The word does not appear once.

The narrator, positioned overhanging, is worked on by the question of death in our Western societies: how we push it away, how we experience that of our loved ones, how we apprehend what will come after it.

Houellebecq pleads once again against euthanasia.

An anti-euthanasia demonstration, May 20, 2019, in Paris KENZO TRIBOUILLARD AFP / Archives

These subjects end up catching up with a Paul Raison who was content to live without faith, without spiritual questioning, and who feels the void left by the collapse of Christianity.

They offer the novel a sublime, lyrical ending in which political intrigue disappears.

Although he promised not to give any interviews, the writer came out of his silence, granting an interview to Le Monde on Thursday, far from the image of the nihilist provocateur and even affirming "that it is with the good feelings that ' we make good literature ".

"You don't have to celebrate evil to be a good writer! In my books, as in Andersen's tales, you immediately understand who the bad guys are and who the good guys are. has very few villains in + Annihilate +, I'm very happy. The ultimate success would be that there are no more villains at all! ", says the star of French letters.

"Annihilate" is printed in 300,000 copies.

© 2021 AFP