THE centenary of the Dreyfus affair was marked by President Chirac of France yesterday as he paid homage to the innocent Jewish officer whose spying conviction tore France apart, and called for vigilance against modern French racism and intolerance.

In a solemn address in the courtyard of the École Militaire, where Captain Alfred Dreyfus was publicly disgraced in 1895, M Chirac paid tribute to the officer whose name came to symbolise the anti-Semitism of the French Establishment. The appeal court exonerated Dreyfus on July 12, 1906, after he had spent four years at the notorious Devil’s Island jail off French Guyana.

He was twice convicted by military courts and spent six years campaigning to prove his innocence.

M Chirac’s gesture was the most unambiguous attempt by a head of state to honour a man who remains suspect to the far-right and to ultra-Catholics.

The military, whose officers fabricated charges against Dreyfus, has never made its peace with the affair. As recently as 1994 an official army historian described Dreyfus’s innocence merely as “the generally accepted thesis”. Descendants of Dreyfus attended the ceremony, with relatives of Émile Zola, the writer whose incendiary newspaper article J’accuse awakened the country to the injustice of Dreyfus’s conviction for spying for Germany.

With his dignity and patriotism, Dreyfus was an exemplary officer who had strengthened the Republic, M Chirac said. “The combat against the dark forces of intolerance and hate is never won. We must remain vigilant,” the President added in his televised speech.

The remark was directed at the racial tensions that continue to afflict France, as manifested in last October’s riots in immigrant estates, in the doctrines of Jean-Marie Le Pen, the popular far-right leader, and in attacks on Jews and their institutions.

This year Dominique de Villepin, the Prime Minister, cited Dreyfus after a 23-year-old Jewish man was kidnapped and tortured to death on a housing estate.

Since his election in 1995 M Chirac has gratified Jewish associations, rights activists and historians with his unqualified condemnation of the sins that the Republic committed against Jews. His predecessor, the late François Mitterrand, argued that the nation was not responsible for the crimes of the puppet state of the Second World War that sent more than 70,000 Jews to their deaths in German camps.

The French Fascists of the 1920s and 1930s and the collaborators of the Vichy state are seen as the ideological heirs of the anti-Dreyfusards who clamoured for the captain’s conviction in the 1890s.

M Chirac recalled that France had been bitterly divided by the affair. “On one side there were those who believed that the interest of the State and the honour of the army should prevail over everything. For them, even innocent, Dreyfus must remain guilty,” said the President, using the present tense. “On the other side are those who consider that France would grow by recognising that an error had been committed.”

M Chirac disappointed campaigners calling for the officer’s remains to be taken from the Montparnasse Cemetery and placed in the Panthéon, the burial place of national heroes. The President argued that Dreyfus was a victim, while the Panthéon is for achievers.

SHODDY AFFAIR

October 1894 Secret service identifies Captain Alfred Dreyfus as author of secret memorandum by French officer spying for Germans

December Dreyfus sentenced to life deportation on Devil’s Island, Guyana

January 1895 Dreyfus cashiered in public ceremony attended by 20,000 in Paris

March 1896 Secret service finds evidence incriminating another officer, clearing Dreyfus

February 1898 Émile Zola is jailed for article accusing the State of committing a crime against humanity. France tears itself apart

September 1899 Dreyfus brought back to France for retrial. Imprisoned for ten years

July 1906 Appeal court proclaims Dreyfus innocent

July 1935 Dreyfus dies