It means "I accuse" in French. This is a half storied work of public journalism, half Memetic Mutation. It goes like this: Once upon a time in France, a renowned writer named Emile Zola penned a scandalous open letter (published in the newspaper L'Aurore on January 13, 1898 -- that's it to the right) that accused the French government of anti-Semitism and corruption in its handling of the Dreyfus Affair of 1894 -- in which an innocent French Army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who just happened to be Jewish, was used as a scapegoat in an espionage case, when it was quite clear to everyone that he was guilty of nothing more than being Jewish. The letter pointed out the weakness of the evidence and several clear occurrences of judicial error and prejudice during Dreyfus's trial; Zola was rapidly c
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| - It means "I accuse" in French. This is a half storied work of public journalism, half Memetic Mutation. It goes like this: Once upon a time in France, a renowned writer named Emile Zola penned a scandalous open letter (published in the newspaper L'Aurore on January 13, 1898 -- that's it to the right) that accused the French government of anti-Semitism and corruption in its handling of the Dreyfus Affair of 1894 -- in which an innocent French Army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who just happened to be Jewish, was used as a scapegoat in an espionage case, when it was quite clear to everyone that he was guilty of nothing more than being Jewish. The letter pointed out the weakness of the evidence and several clear occurrences of judicial error and prejudice during Dreyfus's trial; Zola was rapidly c
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| - It means "I accuse" in French. This is a half storied work of public journalism, half Memetic Mutation. It goes like this: Once upon a time in France, a renowned writer named Emile Zola penned a scandalous open letter (published in the newspaper L'Aurore on January 13, 1898 -- that's it to the right) that accused the French government of anti-Semitism and corruption in its handling of the Dreyfus Affair of 1894 -- in which an innocent French Army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who just happened to be Jewish, was used as a scapegoat in an espionage case, when it was quite clear to everyone that he was guilty of nothing more than being Jewish. The letter pointed out the weakness of the evidence and several clear occurrences of judicial error and prejudice during Dreyfus's trial; Zola was rapidly charged with and convicted for libel and had to flee to England for a year, until the bureaucrats then in power were removed. Dreyfus had been sentenced to life in prison on Devil's Island; he appealed his case multiple times, but it was not until 1906 that his conviction was actually annulled. And all this to cover the French government's collective ass because of the existence of a spy that the government couldn't afford to catch, out of embarassment. Even though Zola's letter itself is famous, the Stock Phrase it has inspired is even more popular as a way to spice up an accusation with a little French. Examples of J'accuse! include:
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