Origin stories

How a French army captain’s injustice sparked the Tour de France

At the turn of the 20th century, Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish French Army captain from Alsace, wallowed in prison having been convicted of selling secrets to the Germans, despite new evidence of his innocence emerging. A fight for his freedom ensued, and French society became transfixed by what became known as L’affaire, with pro-republican ‘Dreyfusards’ on one side and pro-catholic, pro-army ‘Anti-dreyfusards’ on the other.

When editor of Le Vélo, Pierre Giffard, published an article calling for Dreyfus’s release, it so enraged his anti-dreyfusard advertisers that a large group left to set up their own newspaper, L’auto-vélo.

Giffard sued for copyright, forcing the new paper to become L’auto. Either way, its recently installed editor was young cycling journalist Henri Desgrange.

With legal costs and dwindling sales leaving L’auto on the precipice, Desgrange took up a notion suggested by sports writer Georges Lefèvre to set up ‘a cycling Tour of France’ – and sales duly exploded.

In 1940 another legal wrangle erupted; this time L’auto was ordered to close in name, and L’equipe sprang up in its place.

L’equipe and its Tour de France assets were bought by the Amaury family in 1965. Alfred Dreyfus, meanwhile, was exonerated in 1906.