The Dreyfus affair divided France by political camps, not pro-Jewish sentiment

Evidence

It was, before 1914, French rather than German society that was riven by the question of antisemitism through the Dreyfus affair, an episode that divided France not between those who were proand anti-Jewish, but between broadly conservative and liberal camps. Both sides harbored negative views about the Jews, although it was of course the anti-Dreyfusards who launched the violent and murderous attacks on the Jews across the country and into Algiers. Context is again crucial, and the Dreyfus affair was not just about whether the Jews could be loyal French citizens or not, but about the future direction of the nation. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 510

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the existing article ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — both show moral/cultural controversies operating as covers for class and political identity struggles.
• SEED: Angle: the Dreyfus affair as a case study in how ‘single-issue’ ideological panics actually encode broader fights over national direction — a usable essay on how moral panics function as proxy wars.