176 pgs. B & W | $29.99 hardcover | W: Dominique Grange; A: Tardi
If you watched the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, you may have noticed a moment during which the Algerian Olympic team threw roses into the Seine, a rare instance of political frankness in an event that usually tries to pretend that politics don’t exist. The backstory: in 1961, some 50,000 Algerians left their homes on the outskirts of Paris to demonstrate in the city’s center, for Algerian independence and against a curfew imposed specifically on them by the Chief of Police (Maurice Papon, who also participated in the rounding up and deportation of French Jews during World War II). The police broke up the demonstration with extreme violence, injuring many of the demonstrators and throwing hundreds into the Seine, where some drowned, and those deaths are what the Algerian Olympians were commemorating.
This shameful event helped radicalize the young Dominique Grange, who is represented by the fictional character Elise in Elise and the New Partisans, written by Grange and illustrated by her husband, the French cartoonist Jacques Tardi (usually credited as Tardi). You could say the seeds of radicalism fell upon prepared ground, however, since Grange had already been introduced to the seamier side of the French colonial empire thanks to a philosophy teacher at her high school in Lyon. She was also aware at a more personal level of how the French ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity played out in real life: when her father returned from his service in World War II, much of it spent in a German prisoner of war camp, he found his desire to become a professor of medicine stymied due to the preference granted children of the well-connected.
Elise was also active as a performer in Paris, recording pop tunes and winning small roles in the movies and theater. Her big break came when the noted singer Guy Béart took her under his wing: they performed together and he taught her how to be a songwriter. Soon she was writing her own material, including the song “We Are the New Partisans” in 1968, which she wrote for the Maoist movement of the Proletarian Left. While Grange is probably best known today for her music, this volume makes it clear that she remains committed to the causes of liberation and justice in reality, not just in song.
Elise and the New Partisans has a real “you are there” quality to it, probably because it was written by someone who really was there and was absolutely committed to the causes she supported. For an American who came in knowing only a few basic facts about the May 1968 protests and even less about the broader history of social resistance in France, it was a real education to be thrust into this world and see it through the eyes of a young woman who had so many talents and was so willing to put her body on the line to support causes she felt were important.
Two things in particular stand out to me in Elise and the New Partisans: how widespread was the support for the radical changes proposed in 1968, and how violent many of the protests were. On the first point, the stereotype of the protests being the work of spoiled university students is completely wrong: factory workers went on strike all over the country, and people in small towns as well as big cities helped support the protests. On the second: while it is true that the protestors sometimes used violent means (in an early episode, Elise is seriously injured when a bomb-making session goes wrong), their actions were at least equaled by the violent response of the police, who were apparently empowered to use any amount of force against the protestors. Maybe no one got tossed in the Seine, but the excesses of 1961 lived on in 1968, and police violence was not exclusively directed toward people with dark skin.
Grange’s strong narrative voice is the #1 reason this volume succeeds, but Tardi’s art also plays a key role in that effort. Using ink and wash, he draws backgrounds with sufficient realism that you may think you have jumped into a time machine to tour the contemporary locations where the events take place, while for character work he relies more on establishing a few dominant characteristics for each person. The result is that while you always know who is who, the portraits aren’t so specific as to distract from the story being told, and the combination makes for a very enjoyable (and educational) reading experience. | Sarah Boslaugh
You can see a sample of the artwork for Elise and the New Partisans on the Fantagraphics web site. This volume also contains an Afterword by Dominique Grange, written in 2021, a glossary (particularly useful if, like me, you aren’t up on the details of the various political movements that feature in this volume), and a list of the songs referenced. This work was originally published in French in 2021 and is presented in this version in English translation by Jenna Allen.
