Dreyfus honoured, but great-granddaughter ponders what’s changed

Nearly 120 years after Alfred Dreyfus was exonerated by France’s highest court, the French government has officially etched his vindication into national memory. This past weekend, French President Emmanuel Macron declared 12 July, the day in 1906 when Dreyfus’s name was finally cleared, a National Day of Commemoration. It’s intended, Macron said, to honour “the victory of justice and truth over antisemitism”.

It’s a significant move in a country where Dreyfus’s story still runs deep. In 1894, the young Jewish army captain was falsely accused of treason and sentenced to life on Devil’s Island. His conviction was built on forged evidence, and driven by antisemitic hysteria. It shattered his life, and tore France in two.

To understand what this moment means on a personal level, I spoke to Yaël Perl Ruiz, Dreyfus’s great-granddaughter who, like much of the family, still lives in France.

“My mother gave me Dreyfus’s diary to read when I was around 11,” she told me. “It’s called Five Years of My Life. I was shocked by what could be done to someone purely because of their religion. When I finished it, she said, ‘That was your great-grandfather.’”

Dreyfus and his wife, Lucie, had two children – Pierre and Jeanne. Jeanne was Yaël’s grandmother, and her daughter, Simone, Yaël’s mother, knew Dreyfus well. “She was 18 when he died in 1935,” Yaël recalls. “She loved him very much. She said he didn’t talk much, but he was always affectionate with his grandchildren.”

There were other memories too. “He had nightmares. He would scream in the night. He was always in his thoughts because he suffered a lot and his career was broken. He spent years proving his innocence. We were raised with that weight. My mother would always say, ‘After what he endured, we have no right to complain about small things.’ We had to be strong.”

Yaël admits that she knew about the planned commemoration in advance. “I met the president’s advisor at the Élysée Palace, but I had to keep it secret until Macron made the announcement himself.”

This year, the date 12 July also marks the 90th anniversary of Dreyfus’s death.

Yaël hopes the new national day will become more than just a gesture. “It should honour his fight for truth – the stoicism, the dignity he maintained in the face of humiliation. And it should remember those who stood by him, especially the writer, Émile Zola. I believe Zola paid with his life.”

Zola openly accused the French military and government of knowingly convicting an innocent man because of antisemitism. He named high-ranking officials, and exposed the fabrication of evidence on the front page of the newspaper, L’Aurore, a move that caused a national uproar and made him both a hero and a target.

Yaël isn’t blind to the political motives of the move. “The Dreyfus Affair has always been sensitive in France. The timing isn’t random. Antisemitism is rising. The Jewish community here – myself included – feel let down by Macron’s statements after 7 October 2023. Many of us find them incomprehensible. This commemoration is his way of trying to repair some of that damage.”

Yaël doesn’t pretend that the nature of hatred is the same. “Today’s antisemitism doesn’t look like it did back then. Now it comes from the far-left, dressed up as anti-Zionism. And from radical Islamists, who have made their way into schools, universities, even Parliament. And with social media, hate speech spreads in seconds.”

But though she may not carry the Dreyfus surname – her father was from Transylvania – the legacy has shaped her all the same. “Being his descendant meant having responsibilities. I’ve always felt I had to be worthy of him. Courageous. And I’ve worked hard to pass on the story. I’m not an educator, but I’ve run programmes for years, especially for students. I’ve always felt that was part of my duty.”

Yaël’s proud of that, but also protective. “These days, you hear people comparing themselves to Dreyfus – people accused of corruption, of rape – and it makes me furious. It’s not the same. Dreyfus was innocent. What happened to him was a deliberate, institutional, nationalist injustice. The comparison is insulting.”

Has the world learned from the Dreyfus Affair?

She pauses. “I don’t know. Antisemitism and racism are still alive, just wearing different masks. Truth is still manipulated. Governments still hide behind lies to protect themselves. So yes, we remember Dreyfus. But have we truly learned from what was done to him? I’m not sure we have.”