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Norway deserved Breivik says respected French writer

The French literary world is agonising over how to react to a controversial text expressing sympathy for Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik, written by respected French author Richard Millet.

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In an 18 page pamphlet, Richard Millet insists that he does not approve of Behring’s crimes, but states that “Behring is without doubt what Norway deserved”.

Millet describes Breivik as “a child of family breakdown as much as of the ideological and racial fracture which immigration from outside Europe has introduced to Europe.”

The French author says he has read all 1500 pages of Breivik’s online manifesto in which the killer lays out his world view.

“I am a writer and I work as a writer”, Millet said on French television channel i-Télé on Tuesday. “I am not racist…what I dislike is the idea of a huge global village.”

He went on to say that in the actions of Breivik there was “a fascinating beauty of evil”, but that the gunman himself was a “monster”.

Millet has written around 50 books and is on the reading committee at Gallimard, one of France’s most famous publishing companies.

He edits the work of Jonathan Littell, who won France’s prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt, in 2006, and also Alexis Jenni, who won it in 2011.

Jenni said that he did not wish to express his views publicly on the matter, but that Millet “is a man who writes marvellously well. His debatable ideas do not reduce his literary qualities.”

Antoine Gallimard, the company boss is currently on holiday and has so far not commented on the affair, but in 2008 he refused to publish books such as Millet’s “L’Opprobe”, which strongly criticised multiculturalism and immigration.

Breivik was last week sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in a bomb attack and shooting rampage.
 

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