Overview
- The one-line law states, "The French Nation elevates, posthumously, Alfred Dreyfus to the rank of brigadier general."
- After a unanimous National Assembly vote in June, senators approved the text on November 6 without changes, clearing the way for presidential promulgation.
- Supporters call the measure an act of repair and recognition, with Senate Socialist leader Patrick Kanner saying it allows the Republic to acknowledge a humiliating error.
- The move follows Dreyfus’s 1906 exoneration and addresses a lingering injustice, as his five years of imprisonment were not credited toward seniority when he was reinstated as chef d’escadron.
- Some MoDem, LR and centrist figures voiced reservations and signaled abstentions, and President Emmanuel Macron had cautioned about parliamentary promotions, even as he instituted a July 12 national commemoration and Dreyfus’s descendants welcomed the law.