Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906) -- *Raison d'État* and institutional maintenance of the lie

The Dreyfus Affair is the French politico-judicial scandal in which Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer of the French army, was falsely accused and convicted of espionage in favor of Germany in 1894. Military authorities quickly discovered that the real traitor was Commander Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, but deliberately maintained Dreyfus’s conviction in order to protect the prestige of the army and institutional honor. The affair divided France for 12 years before Dreyfus’s complete rehabilitation in 1906.

The Dreyfus Affair is the French politico-judicial scandal in which Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer of the French army, was falsely accused and convicted of espionage in favor of Germany in 1894. Military authorities quickly discovered that the real traitor was Commander Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy, but deliberately maintained Dreyfus's conviction to protect the prestige of the army and institutional honor. The affair divided France for 12 years before Dreyfus's complete rehabilitation in 1906. | Conclusion: The Dreyfus Affair is the purest historical case of 'Raison d'Etat' applied to an individual injustice. The parallel with Epstein concerns the institutional mechanism: the priority given to protecting the system over individual justice. The major difference: Dreyfus was innocent; in the Epstein case, it is the non-prosecution of accomplices that constitutes the institutional injustice.