Could Alfred Dreyfus be appointed posthumously general?
For this first "
Protestant dinner
", Emmanuel Macron did not close the door.
"
Is it up to the President of the Republic to make Dreyfus a general today?"
My answer in principle would be no
”, first replied the Head of State, questioned by the Chief Rabbi of France Haim Korsia on this way of“
repairing
”the Dreyfus affair.
After his rehabilitation in 1906, the captain had been appointed knight of the Legion of honor, lieutenant-colonel shortly before the end of the First World War.
To his grandson, Alfred Dreyfus summed up his life: "
I was only an artillery officer, whom a tragic error prevented from following his path
".
Emmanuel Macron does not wish to revisit this affair in the light of the present, while suggesting that his appointment to the rank of general could come from the military hierarchy.
Emmanuel Macron wants to avoid "the act of the prince"
"
For a first reason, which would be to avoid trouble,
" he smiled. “
For a second, more profound, which is that we would then open a possibility for the President of the Republic to restore or degrade anyone depending on the time. Because tomorrow I would have requests from such and such to degrade generals who participated in colonization or in such and such a war
”.
"
The big risk is to revisit the military hierarchy or history, with today's perspective
," continued the Head of State, during a question-and-answer session with the audience. .
"
But the difficulty with the Dreyfus case is that you base your remarks on an irrefutable reality which is to reconstitute the career that we have suspended
", he said.
“
When hatred comes out of its bed in a society, it takes a long time to come back to it, it suffices to see the years that Dreyfus lived afterwards: forbidden to participate in the pantheonization of Zola, we shoot him and we whitewash the author of the shooting
”, he noted.
“
Your argument makes this case unique
”.
“
But it is undoubtedly the military institution, in a dialogue with the representatives of the French people, which can do it, more than the president as a sovereign decision, as a fact of the prince.
I think it would be inappropriate.
But
in pectore
(in my heart) it is.
The chief of the armies that I am can tell you that
”, he concluded.
“120 years later, there is still time for the Armies to give Alfred Dreyfus all the honor and all the years that have been taken from him.
And I will take care of it personally ”
Florence Parly in July 2019.
In July 2019, the Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, opened the door to a promotion of Alfred Dreyfus.
“
120 years later, there is still time for the Armies to give Alfred Dreyfus all the honor and all the years that have been taken from him.
And I will take care of it personally,
”she said.
LR deputy Eric Ciotti then said he was in favor of his promotion to the rank of general.
After inaugurating on Tuesday the Alfred Dreyfus museum open in the Zola House in Médan (Yvelines), Emmanuel Macron participated in a charity dinner organized by a network of Protestant entrepreneurs.
The president of the Protestant Federation of France François Clavairoly defended values such as welcoming foreigners and sharing wealth.
