The Dreyfus Affair
Most historians now agree that Alfred Dreyfus was innocent of the charges lodged against him; it is generally believed they were motivated at least in part by his religion, Judaism. His conviction and eventual exoneration reverberated through French history for decades. It sparked a 1905 law separating church and state and marginalized the far right (a status from which that party has yet to recover). The Vichy government that ran the country as German puppets during part of World War II was largely made of anti-Dreyfus people or their descendants.