Gilles Bertin - Trinta anos a monte : a minha vida punk

This Portuguese edition includes more visual documents than the original French edition, as well as a 24-page comic strip by José Smith Vargas, celebrating the activity of the TORPEDO record store.

Throughout the account of a frenetic life, Gilles Bertin (1961-2019) opens a window into the density of punk circles and the transition to serious crime at the intersection with the Basque independence struggles. This account of escapes between Spain and Portugal shows us everything from the difficulties of heroin addiction to the arrival of AIDS. It is a testimony that allows us to see the crazy adventure of a group of punks and anarchists who orchestrated one of the biggest robberies of the 20th century. In this autobiography, Bertin shows us the path that led the singer Camera Silens to organize the Brinks robbery in Toulouse in 1988. And then there is the escape, the arrival in Spain, the change of identity (...), the survival, the abdication of everything. Upon arriving in Portugal, Gilles returned to the world of music, opening a record store (...).

After a few years in Portugal, he discovered he was HIV-positive. When the disease worsened, Gilles left for Barcelona, ​​and it was in that city that he decided to turn himself in to French justice in 2016. In 2018, he was sentenced to 5 years of suspended imprisonment. 11.8 million francs and 30 years on the run later, Gilles Bertin remains a pillar of that fading European punk and anarchist memory. - in A Batalha - Jornal de Expressão Anarquista