I just abandoned Houllebecq’s Serotonin a quarter of the way through (shortly after the description of Yuzu’s videos, for those who have read it).
Annie Ernaux’s The Years, its successor, is promising.
What French fiction would you recommend?
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Yes, read it in English. Not one of my favourite books.
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Fred Vargas, Pierre Lemaître, Jean-Paul Dubois, Muriel Barbery, Erik Emptaz, Joël Dicker, Franck Thilliez, Anna Gavalda, Philippe Claudel, Michel Bussi, Delphine de Vigan, that’s a few to be getting on with.
I recommend you start with Une Vie Française by Jean-Paul Dubois 
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Thank you, @vero . Vargas and Lemaitre I know (I found Lemaitre’s cruelty impossible to appreciate), also Barbery and Claudel.
Lots to explore !
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The few (7) works by Marcel Pagnol are both nostalgic of a world gone by and perceptive of human nature.
I was also recently entranced by ‘Son odeur après la pluie’ by Cédric Sapin-Defour
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I bought that after our Isi died, and couldn’t get past page 5. I found the writing style too flowery.
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Claude Michelet wrote a trilogy about life on a farm through several generations.
In a recent novel, Alice Zeniter wrote about a family of Algerian Harkis who moved to France.
I read these in English. Literary French is beyond me, way beyond me.
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I hope you enjoy JP Dubois! I chose contemporary authors working on the principle that you would know older ones anyway.
Houellebecq can be funny but he really is dreary, with many bees in his bonnet - I liked les particules élémentaires, soumission was just facile and silly and when it came to serotonin I just thought oh get over yourself you old creep.
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If you found Lemaître too violent I would suggest you avoid Thilliez. He is a very good and astute writer, gives you food for thought but it can be uncomfortable reading I find.
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We bought a condoléance card today, which had a slip of paper in it with 9 suggested phrases. I know what flowery means!!
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I love flowery language! French used to be the language of diplomacy, excellent for flourishes. Possibly also excellent when needing something oblique if not even obtuse. 
Big difference to me between weasel-speak (ie measured diplomatic phrases) and an overdose of flowery saccharine!
To sound saccharine or amer ,therein lies talent!
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Sent abroad to lie for their country!
I’ve read a few Amelie Nothomb books - a bit dark in my view but very straightforward in terms of the language.Currently reading Musso’s “Central Park”.
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In theory I ought to like Simenon as I’m a great fan of Maigret on screen but have never quite managed to “get into” any of them in print. Probably a combination of inadequate language skills and the fact that the character is somewhat different in the books compared with on screen interpretations.
Unless you’ve seen Rowan Atkinson. 
I love Simenon. But the language can be a bit obscure, a bit like petit Nicolas in that it’s dated and not very Flaubertian (not describing this very well, am I?). It’s good if either you read on Kindle or you have the English text to hand and the willpower not to abandon the French version!
I greatly amused a French friend by using un complet for “a suit”, which I’d got from Maigret. Apparently no one has used the term since the 1960s 
which made it all the more attractive to me.
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Yes wasn’t Michael Gambon fantastic in that role?
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