France, July 11 -- Ninety years after Alfred Dreyfus died, France is still confronting the legacy of the Dreyfus Affair - a scandal that laid bare deep anti-Semitism in the French Republic and shaped history far beyond its borders, including the path to Israel's creation.

The scandal began in 1894 when Dreyfus, a Jewish army captain from Alsace, was accused of passing military secrets to Germany. The evidence was flimsy, the investigation tainted by prejudice and the trial a public spectacle, fuelled by a virulently anti-Semitic press.

Despite the lack of proof, Dreyfus was convicted of treason, publicly stripped of his rank and sentenced to life on the notorious Devil's Island penal colony, off the coast of French Guiana.

The injustic...