France refuses to put Captain Dreyfus' ashes in the Pantheon

The ashes of Jewish army captain Alfred Dreyfus will not be moved to the hallowed Pantheon, Paris' most prestigious resting place, the president's office said Wednesday.

Photo: France refuses to put Captain Dreyfus' ashes in the Pantheon

President Jacques Chirac will lead a national ceremony honoring Dreyfus on July 12, the 100th anniversary of his rehabilitation after being unjustly accused of treason in a case that shook the nation.

But aides said Chirac decided not to have Dreyfus' ashes moved to the Pantheon. Chirac's office gave no reason for the refusal. Aides said he preferred a large-scale national ceremony.

Some groups had requested that Dreyfus' remains be installed in the domed Pantheon in the Latin Quarter, where those of author Emile Zola, whose defense of Dreyfus led to the rehabilitation, lay.

Dreyfus was accused of spying for the Germans, who skillfully used army intelligence to help seize Alsace and Lorraine from France in the war of 1870. The regions remained in German hands until the end of World War I in 1918.

In a famous 1898 article titled "J'Accuse," Zola successfully argued that Dreyfus was framed as a spy by a French military looking for scapegoats. Anti-Semitism was rife in France at the time.

On the centenary of the article in 1998, the French Roman Catholic daily newspaper La Croix apologized for rabid anti-Semitic editorials printed during the Dreyfus Affair, and for attacking Zola, reports AP.