Eric Chahi

84 years ago, on June 25, 1940, the Nazi occupation of France began. Marshal Pétain headed a right-wing authoritarian collaborationist regime in the south, flying the French flag while cooperating with the Gestapo to stamp out French resistance. Those who remember life in France under a far-right government are now 90 or older. My dad is one of them. For him and for all who survived that dark period, the spectre of the far right returning to power in France gives cold shivers. My dad and his aunt Lisa recounted to me their adventures in France from 1938-41. I wrote and drew their story in my autobiographical graphic novel, "Replay: Memoir of an Uprooted Family." (Here's page 196.) The philosopher George Santayana said in 1905: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." As a U.S. citizen and French resident, I don't have the right to vote in Friday's election. I hope my French friends who do have this right will remember the lessons of the 20th century, and what our elders lived through and survived.