Etienne Roda-Gil

Biography

Étienne Roda-Gil (1 August 1941 in Septfonds, Tarn-et-Garonne, France – 31 May 2004 in Paris) was a songwriter and screenwriter. He was an anarchist and an anarcho-syndicalist.

Roda-Gil was born in the Septfonds internment camp to refugees who had fled Francoism at the end of the Spanish Civil War. His father, Antonio Roda Vallès, had been a militant with the CNT and a member of the Durruti column. In the early 1950s the family moved to Antony, a suburb of Paris, where he studied at the Lycée Henri IV. In 1959, when he was called to military service in Algeria, Roda-Gil instead fled to London, where he became active in anarchist and rock-and-roll circles. He returned to France after receivi...