Assembly unanimously elevates Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of general

French MPs unanimously approved on Monday a bill aimed at elevating Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of general, an “act of reparation” intended to complete his rehabilitation, 130 years after his conviction.

This Jewish officer (1859-1935) was wrongfully convicted at the end of the 19th century for allegedly helping Germany spy on France, before being rehabilitated. “The Dreyfus Affair” became a symbol in France of the fight against anti-Semitism.

The text, which provides for elevating Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general, the first rank in the hierarchy of generals, was adopted by all 197 deputies present. It must continue its journey in the Senate.

“By our vote, the Republic will repair an error, the one that Officer Dreyfus had to suffer in 1906,” even though he had been exonerated, when a law was adopted that “did not reinstate him to the rank that was his right,” said the rapporteur, Bas-Rhin (northeast) MP Charles Sitzenstuhl from the presidential camp, in his introductory statement.

A “gesture [...] all the more significant” as it comes in a context “where acts of anti-Semitic hatred are experiencing a worrying increase,” highlighted the delegate minister for Memory and Veterans, Patricia Miralles.

It is an “act of reparation,” summarized former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who initiated the bill, in the explanatory statement of the text.

In 1894, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason and exiled to Devil's Island in French Guiana, based on false accusations fueled by deep-seated anti-Semitism in late 19th-century French society.

In 1906, a ruling by the Court of Cassation exonerated him, leading to his reinstatement in the army. Subsequently, a law appointed him squadron leader, equivalent to the rank of major, effective the day of the law’s promulgation.

“Complete career reconstruction”

An “injustice” because “the reintroduction of Captain Dreyfus to the rank of squadron leader does not correspond to a complete career reconstruction,” according to Sitzenstuhl. Alfred Dreyfus himself asked to have his career reevaluated, without success, and left the army in 1907, before serving again during World War I.

The question of his full and complete rehabilitation “was long obscured and ignored, outside his family and specialists of the Affair,” noted Sitzenstuhl.

A step was taken in 2006, during a national tribute in his honor: the then French President Jacques Chirac acknowledged that “justice has not completely been served” and that he did not benefit from “the career reconstruction to which he was nevertheless entitled.”

In 2021, the current French President Emmanuel Macron deemed that it was perhaps up to the “military institution, in dialogue with the representatives of the French people,” to name Alfred Dreyfus a general posthumously.