Calls for Dreyfus to be buried in Panthéon

[Errigal]

Calls for Dreyfus to be buried in Panthéon

Kim Willsher in Paris
Tuesday June 27, 2006
The Guardian


The trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Image: The Observer
It is 100 years since Captain Alfred Dreyfus, victim of one of the most notorious acts of anti-semitism in French history, was exonerated of trumped-up charges of treason.The Jewish army officer - who was supported by writer Emile Zola in his famous open letter J'accuse - was freed from exile in a brutal penal colony, readmitted to the army and awarded a Légion d'Honneur.
Now, a century later, there are calls for Dreyfus's remains to be transferred to the Panthéon in Paris, the burial place for France's great and good including Zola, fellow writers Voltaire and Victor Hugo, and Pierre and Marie Curie.

French historian Vincent Duclert is among a growing number of academics, jurists and members of the public who believe the move - a decision that can only be made by the president - would send a clear message about anti-semitism in 21st century France."Although he was a victim of a conspiracy at the heart of state Dreyfus was a heroic fighter for justice," he said.
"Even after undergoing this terrifying deportation he refused to behave like a condemned man. He behaved like someone who was innocent. He did not see himself as a victim because he was Jewish but a citizen fighting for the truth."
Prof Duclert hopes the president, Jacques Chirac, will use his traditional July 14 Bastille Day speech to elevate Dreyfus to the Panthéon.
"Dreyfus represents those fundamental values we are seeking in today's republic," he said. "It would also send a signal about anti-semitism now and how everyone, not least of all the institutes of state, must continue to fight it."
Jean-Louis Nadal, chief prosecutor at France's supreme court, which finally cleared Dreyfus in 1906, agreed.
"If the Panthéon is intended for great men to whom the country had a debt of gratitude, then Alfred Dreyfus should be there, not as a victim, even if he was a heroic victim, but as a man who fought for justice," he told French radio.
Dreyfus, an obscure but fervently patriotic army officer from a wealthy Jewish family was wrongly accused of passing French military secrets to the Germans in 1894. At the time the French army was riddled with anti-semitism and despite protesting his innocence he was convicted of treason by a secret court martial.
Before he was sentenced to life on the dreaded Devil's Island, a penal colony off French Guiana, Dreyfus was subject to the humiliation of being stripped of his rank in public.
In 1898 it was discovered that much of the evidence against him had been forged by a top military officer. When Dreyfus was not freed, Zola published his celebrated open letter J'accuse, accusing the French army of corruption and dishonesty.
Zola was convicted of libel and fled to England. Dreyfus returned to France after five years in solitary confinement, his health damaged and his military career in ruins. It took a further three years before he was cleared of spying.
The Dreyfus Affair, which had a major impact on French institutions, was to have far-reaching consequences. After witnessing Dreyfus's public humiliation, Theodore Herzl, a young Viennese reporter was allegedly inspired to write The Jewish State, widely recognised as the manifesto for the rise of modern Zionism.
Dreyfus left the army after his pardon but re-enlisted for the first world war, serving behind the lines of the western front. He died in Paris in 1935 aged 75 and is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.

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[Carnyx]

"My race will have revenge on yours." Alfred Dreyfus