FRANCE: Du Paty de Clam

Half a century ago a pompous, patrician French Army officer, Mercier du Paty de Clam, played a key role in the historic plot against Jewish Captain Alfred Dreyfus. Emile Zola’s flaming J’Accuse! began “I accuse Colonel du Paty de Clam of having been the diabolical agent. . . .”

Last week the “diabolical” colonel’s son, Charles du Paty de Clam, became Vichy’s new Commissioner General for Jewish Affairs. His job is to apply Nazi racial theories, to degrade and pauperize all French Jews.