In the pages of this oversize hardcover comics memoir, originally published in France in 2021, Tardi adapts his wife, Dominique Grange's first-person account of the political uprisings that rocked France, begininning with the protests against the French military's exceedingly violent suppression of the Algerian independence movement that included the killing of protesters in France and continuing through the uprisings that characterised "May 1968" and that continued into the 1970s – and on to today, in one form or another.  The story presented by Elise and the New Partisans is a complex, historically rooted tale specific to France, the nuances and subtleties of which many Americans* will be unable to fully appreciate, but its central themes – rising up against blatant injustice and fighting oppression – are both universal and forcefully and directly presented. 

It's a gripping read that has much to say to the present.

For many longtime Tardi fans, reading this will be an eye-opening experience, adding a heretofore unsuspected political dimension to his works that will have them pulling his earlier works off the shelf for rereadings.

*A servicable approach for those unfamilar with the history of French Colonialism in Northern Africa, would be to characterise the resistance to it and protests against it taking place in France – which in turn kicked off larger scale protests against the status quo –  that began during the 1950s and then grew exponentially in the 1960s, as being similar in tenor and significance to the conflation of the Civil Rights Movement and the protests agains the War in Vietnam that were taking place in America at roughly the same time, while keeping in mind that there are many siginificant differences and points of departure between the two situations.  Jenna Allen's excellent translation helps fill in some blanks, and the author provides an informative afterword; there is also a helpful glossary of organizations appeded at the conclusion of the work.