Prize-winning French novelist Michel Houellebecq is to stand trial on Tuesday on charges of making a racial insult and inciting religious hatred.
The controversial writer is being sued by four Islamic organisations in Paris after making "insulting" remarks about the religion in an interview about his latest book.
The novel, Platform, is also cited in the case being made by the largest mosques in Paris and Lyon, the National Federation of French Muslims (FNMN) and the World Islamic League.
In an interview given last year to the French literary magazine Lire, the author was quoted as saying "the dumbest religion, after all, is Islam".
"When you read the Koran, you're shattered. The Bible at least is beautifully written because the Jews have a heck of a literary talent," he told Lire.
The author, who recently won the Impac literary prize, is used to the controversy - and the attendant publicity - arising from his frank and sometimes nihilistic novels.
He has neither retracted his comments nor defended the main character in his novel Platform, who admits to a "quiver of glee" every time a "Palestinian terrorist" is killed.
"A writer is not interviewed as if he were on a political stage with a microphone," his lawyer Emmanuel Pierrat said.
'Humorous'
Last year Mr Houellebecq said he had "a gift" for insults and provocation.
"In my novels, it adds a certain spice. It's rather humorous, no? What I think as an individual seems to be of no importance here," he said in an interview.
But the lawyers for the Paris and Lyon mosques said in a statement: "It is anti-Muslim racism that is at the heart of the trial, not the personality or the provocative tastes of one successful author or another."
Houellebecq, who lives in Ireland, is working on the film adaptation of his novel Atomised (Les Particules Elementaires).
He has said he plans to explain his thought processes to the court - and that a number of French literary figures will speak in his defence.
He faces a year in jail or a 52,000 euro (£33,000) fine if he loses the case.