Statue of Alfred Dreyfus to be installed in central Paris on July 12

A bronze statue of Alfred Dreyfus will be unveiled on July 12 in Rue de Harlay on the Île de la Cité. The 3.5-metre figure will stand in front of the cour de cassation, France's highest civil court. The statue had been relocated multiple times since its creation in 1985. It spent six years in the Tuileries garden before being moved in 1994 to Place Pierre Lafue in the 6th arrondissement.

Dreyfus affair Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain, was convicted of treason in 1894 at a secret court martial. He was stripped of his rank in a public ceremony and sent to solitary confinement on Devil's Island. Three years later, military investigators found that evidence against him had been forged and that another officer had passed the document in question to German agents.

The cour de cassation exonerated Dreyfus on July 12, 1906.

Placement decisions and prior refusals The French army twice declined to place the statue at l'École Militaire, where Dreyfus had been dishonourably discharged. A proposed site opposite the Palais de Justice was also rejected. A resin copy is displayed at the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris, and another stands in Tel Aviv.

The original bronze remained at Place Pierre Lafue until the current relocation. The pedestal bears the inscription: "If you want me to live, help me regain my honour," taken from a letter Dreyfus wrote to his wife while imprisoned.