Amin Maalouf is Second Arab Elected to Académie Francaise's 40 "Immortals"

Amin Maalouf, the well known Lebanese novelist, journalist and all-around writer who writes primarily in French, has been elected to the Académie française. (Link is to the L'Express story which, appropriately for a story about the Academy, is in French.)   The Academy, which is the ultimate protector and promoter of the French language, has only 40 members, who serve for life and are elected by the current members. He takes the 29th seat, vacated by the death of Claude Lévi-Strauss in 2009. A good profile of Maalouf is here.

Maalouf is not the first Francophone Arab in the French Academy. That would be Assia Djebar, an Algerian novelist, elected in 2005.

I wonder if Cardinal Richelieu, the original patron of the Academy, would be surprised. My first thought was, would he find it strange that two Arabs were among the 40 "immortals," as the Members are styled? Then I recalled that, though a Cardinal of the of the Roman Catholic Church, he brought France into the 30 Years War (the last religious war) on what was otherwise the "Protestant" side. So, nah, probably not.