Ian Buruma

The Dreyfus Affair continues to haunt France to this day

Inspired by the likes of Éric Zemmour, the extreme right is not only reviving reactionary ideas but even questioning the innocence of Captain Dreyfus himself

Captain Alfred Dreyfus. [Alamy] 
issue 20 April 2024

A short new book on Captain Alfred Dreyfus, the proudly patriotic French army officer who was falsely accused in 1894 of being a German spy, and whose court cases divided France into two warring camps, could not have been better timed. For the division sounds horribly familiar. Liberal, democratic, secular, cosmopolitan, urban France was pitted against provincial, religious, authoritarian, anti-immigrant, chauvinistic France.

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