The Antisemitic Riots of 1898

This chapter examines the antisemitic riots of 1898, which was possibly the high-point of popular involvement in the Dreyfus Affair, and certainly the main manifestation of hostility to Jews in the period. The evidence from administrative and police reports establishes that the 1898 riots were both serious and widespread, and it provides a good idea of what provoked them. They can thus be placed in the wider perspective, not simply of French antisemitism, but of popular disturbances in general in nineteenth-century France, for the two had traditionally gone together. What was the nature of this antisemitism, and what prompted it, beyond the simple pretext afforded by the Dreyfus Affair? There is a fair correlation between the Jewish presence in a town and the outbreak of an antisemitic riot. In general, it seems to be true that antisemitism in France was not prompted by real grievances against Jews, by the experience of coexistence; it was directed against real Jews. Indeed, the 1898 riots were often expressions of patriotic sentiment, of support for the army and of opposition to Emile Zola, but their main targets were Jews, and Jews were attacked in a material way.