France sets annual Dreyfus commemoration day

France will hold an annual day honouring Alfred Dreyfus, the French-Jewish military officer who was falsely accused of treason in 1895, President Emmanuel Macron declared on Saturday.

The Dreyfus affair is widely seen as a symbol of antisemitism in Europe and a major catalyst for modern Zionism.

“From now on, there will be a commemoration ceremony every July 12 for Dreyfus, for the victory of justice and the truth against hatred and antisemitism,” Macron said in a statement published by his office.

The statement went on to say that the national day will be first marked in 2026, on the 120th anniversary of France’s highest appeals court recognising Dreyfus’s innocence.

Coincidentally, perhaps, Dreyfus died exactly 29 years later, aged 75, on July 12, 1935.

The Dreyfus affair exposed deep-seated antisemitism in French society and caused a public storm that led to a long legal battle to exonerate his name.

Born in 1859, the captain of artillery was convicted in a secret court martial for allegedly selling French military secrets to the Germans, with a handwritten message falsely attributed to him. He was publicly stripped of his army rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil’s Island in French Guiana in South America.

In the public ceremony stripping him of his ranks and breaking his sword, historians recorded Dreyfus as declaring, “I swear that I am innocent. I remain worthy of serving in the Army. Long live France! Long live the Army!”

A year later, reports of the bias in his trial were leaked to the press, and a heated debate about the affair ensued. Moreover, suspicions surfaced about the real traitor, Maj. Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, who had since fled to England.

Lt. Col. Georges Picquart, head of the intelligence services, reinvestigated the case in secret and found that the handwriting on the incriminating message belonged to Esterhazy.

Picquart submitted the evidence to the army’s general staff and was himself jailed for a year as a result. Esterhazy, on the other hand, was acquitted.

In January 1989, French novelist and journalist Émile Zola published a newspaper opinion piece headlined “J’Accuse…!” giving a voice to Dreyfus’s cause, as the public pressure for a retrial grew, with accusations of antisemitism dividing society.

In 1899, Dreyfus was given a second trial, but was again found guilty of treason.

President Émile Loubet pardoned Dreyfus shortly afterwards, but he technically remained a traitor. During this period, he lived under a form of restricted residence, initially with his sister. This was not a formal house arrest but rather a restriction on his movement due to his legal status.

It was only in 1906 that he was exonerated by a military commission. He was subsequently rehabilitated and reinstated in the French Army, although at a lower rank than his seniority would have warranted.

Dreyfus served during World War I, first as a major of artillery, and then as a lieutenant colonel.

Today, France hosts the third-largest Jewish population in the world, after Israel and the United States.

The lower house of France’s Parliament voted on June 2 to posthumously promote Dreyfus to brigadier general.

All 197 lawmakers present at the National Assembly supported the legislation, which was introduced by former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal of Macron’s Renaissance Party, AFP reported.

The Senate would also need to pass the bill for the promotion to take effect.

JNF