Thirty Years at Monte. My punk life.

Throughout the account of a frantic life, Gilles Bertin (1961–2019) opens a window into the intensity of the punk scene and the transition to major crime at the intersection of 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 gives us a glimpse of the crazy adventure of a group of punks and anarchists who carried out one of the greatest robberies of the 20th century. In this autobiography, Gilles Bertin shows us the path that led the singer of Cameras Silens to organize the robbery of the Brinks in Toulouse in 1988. And then there is the escape, the arrival in Spain, the change of identity (...), survival, the renunciation of everything. It is upon arriving in Portugal that Gilles returns to the music world by opening a record store (...).

After a few years in Portugal, he discovers that he is HIV-positive. When the disease worsens, Gilles leaves for Barcelona, and it is in that city that in 2016 he makes the decision to surrender to French justice. In 2018, he is sentenced to 5 years of suspended prison. 11.8 million francs and 30 years of escape later, Gilles Bertin remains a pillar of this European punk and anarchist memory that is gradually disappearing.

(In A Batalha – Jornal de Expressão Anarquista.)

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