J’accuse.

“J’accuse” is the famous opening of Émile Zola’s open letter intervening in the Dreyfus Affair, the French political and judicial crisis sparked by the 1894 conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason. Convinced that Dreyfus had been framed and that the army and government were suppressing evidence, Zola published his letter as a front-page manifesto addressed to President Félix Faure. Appearing in the Paris daily L’Aurore in January 1898, it publicly named officials Zola held responsible for miscarriage of justice and antisemitic persecution. The publication led to Zola’s prosecution for libel and his temporary exile, but it helped galvanize pro-Dreyfusard opinion and pressure for retrial.

In two words, Zola turns accusation into a moral and civic act. “J’accuse” (“I accuse”) asserts personal responsibility—he stakes his own name and legal safety on the claim that the state has committed wrongdoing. The phrase also dramatizes a shift from private doubt to public indictment: it is not merely that an error occurred, but that identifiable actors knowingly sustained it. As a rhetorical device, the repeated “I accuse” in the letter functions like a prosecutor’s bill of particulars, converting outrage into a structured case. Historically, the phrase has come to symbolize the writer as public conscience and the power of journalism to confront institutional injustice.

1) “J’accuse…!” (often printed with ellipsis and exclamation)
2) “J’accuse…! Lettre au Président de la République” (as part of the headline/title)
3) “J’accuse !” (spacing/punctuation variant commonly used in citations)