French lawmakers want Dreyfus promoted 130 years after scandal

French Lawmakers Propose Posthumous Promotion for Alfred Dreyfus in Symbolic Act of Justice

Alfred Dreyfus. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. A group of French lawmakers on Tuesday put forward a proposal to promote Alfred Dreyfus — a Jewish army captain wrongly convicted of espionage in the late 19th century — to the rank of brigadier general, more than a century after his death. Former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who is leading the initiative, said the law would “constitute an act of reparation, a recognition of [Dreyfus’s] merits, and a tr…

French MPs want to promote wrongly convicted Captain Dreyfus, 130 years on

Lawmakers have proposed a bill to promote Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army captain whose 1894 conviction of treason rocked French society. The MPs say France is still fighting against antisemitism today.

French lawmakers want Dreyfus promoted 130 years after scandal

A group of French members of parliament said Tuesday they wanted Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French army captain wrongly convicted for treason in 1894, to be awarded the rank of brigadier general.

The leader of the Renaissance deputies wanted to remedy posthumously "the injustice" suffered by the illustrious officer of the French army, accused and wrongly condemned for espionage at the end of the 19th century. An initiative that joined that of the socialist group in the Senate.

This bill, tabled last week, aims to restore Alfred Dreyfus's rank as Brigadier General, a rank he could have applied for. The case that bears his name was, on the basis of anti-Semitism, a major scandal at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

French MPs have called for Captain Alfred Dreyfus to be given a posthumous promotion - European Jewish Congress

More than a decade after being convicted of treason Alfred Dreyfus was rehabilitated when French officials conceded that he had fallen victim to injustice against a backdrop of antisemitism. The Jewish army captain, whose case divided France in the late 19th century, never lost his patriotism despite spending more than four years in solitary confinement in the notorious Devil’s Island penal colony off French Guiana. After the case against him ha…