Abstract
From the shootings on the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, to the Nice attacks on Bastille Day, France has experienced two “anni horribiles” (2015 and 2016). My article notes an enthusiasm among the greatest French writers and intellectuals, in the span of two years, for predictive literature. I observe that current anxieties and uncertainties have given rise to a counter-utopian fiction portraying the future in France, through a spate of new works by Jean Rolin (novelist),1 Jacques Attali (economist), Michel Wieviorka (sociologist), Michel Onfray (philosopher), to name a few. It is my hypothesis that Soumission (which inspired dozens of imitators) serves as a catalyst for this unprecedented counter-utopian wave, and deploys the poietics of Western decadence. Houellebecq, whose poetic use of stylistics itself is overtly based on Huysmans’ decadence and Schopenhauer’s pessimism, is analyzed as the frontrunner of a new utopian subgenre distinct from dystopia : the French counter-utopia.
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