The controversial article by Jean-Louis Thiériot in French media outlet Le Figaro praising the antisemite Maurice Barrès. Photo: Screenshot

An article praising one of the most notorious antisemites in French history has resulted in a storm of condemnation of its author, a parliamentarian from the conservative Les Républicains (LR) Party.

The article — titled “Maurice Barrès, the herald of the sacred union” — was published on Saturday in the weekend magazine of the prominent media outlet Le Figaro and extensively discussed in its weekly podcast. The article’s author, Jean-Louis Thiériot, argued that Barrès, a writer and politician who stoked violence against Jews during the show trial of the French Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus during the 1890s, deserved a more generous interpretation of his legacy despite his well-known antisemitic views.

According to the late scholar of antisemitism, Prof. Robert Wistrich, Barrès was among a crop of leaders who advocated “street-fighting antisemitism,” since this was “the weapon which had the most attraction for the plebeian masses.”  Yet according to Thiériot, Barrès antisemitism should not diminish his contribution to the “construction of our national imagination…what a role he played!”

Responding to Thiériot on social media, several commentators highlighed viscerally antisemitic statements uttered by Barrès. “Dreyfus is a traitor; I deduce that from his race,” he wrote of the Jewish army officer who was framed in 1894 on false charges of spying for Germany in a case that unleashed a wave of antisemitic violence across France. In another essay, he wrote: “‘Down with the Jews!’ Will it be the title of a particular chapter of our history? The crowd always needs words of war to rally, it wants some cry of passion.”

Left-wing parliamentarians Thomas Portes and Matthias Tavel respectively denounced Thiériot for “praising a notorious antisemite” and for keeping “despicable company.” Ronan Loas, the mayor of a small town in Brittany, separately criticized the leadership of the LR Party for remaining silent regarding Thiériot’s article, slamming Barrès at the same time as the “herald of antisemitism and racism.”

Thiériot argued that while Barrès had “greatly contributed to the mosaic of hatreds” during the previous century, as demonstrated by his actions during the Dreyfus trial, he deserved respect for having pushed through a law that mandated “the maintenance of the churches in France, despite the law of separation [of religion and state].”

Opposition to Barrès during his lifetime came from several sources, among them the artists of the subversive “Dada” movement, who staged a mock trial in 1921, two years before his death, charging him with an “attack on the safety of the mind.”