France promotes Jewish soldier Alfred Dreyfus, 130 years after wrongfully convicting him of treason [View all]

France Tuesday promoted Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain wrongly convicted of treason in 1894, to the rank of brigadier general as an act of reparation in a notorious case of anti-Semitism that has caused outrage for generations.

The law is seen as a symbolic step in the fight against anti-Semitism in modern France, at a time of growing alarm over hate crimes targeting Jews in the country in the context of the Gaza war. President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu signed the promotion into law on Monday, and it was published in the so-called Official Journal of new legislation on Tuesday.

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Dreyfus, a 36-year-old army captain from the Alsace region of eastern France, was accused in October 1894 of passing secret information on new artillery equipment to a German military attache. The accusation, based on a comparison of handwriting on a document found in the German's wastepaper basket in Paris, kicked off what would become known as the "Dreyfus affair".

Dreyfus was put on trial amid a virulent anti-Semitic press campaign. But novelist Emile Zola then penned his famous "J'accuse...!" (I accuse) pamphlet in support of the captain. Despite a lack of evidence, Dreyfus was convicted of treason, sentenced to life imprisonment in the infamous Devil's Island penal colony in French Guiana and publicly stripped of his rank.

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https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20251118-france-promotes-jewish-soldier-dreyfus-130-years-after-scandal