They Hung the Flag of Vietcong on Top of Notre-Dame: the Extraordinary Adventure of Three Waldensians, Heroes of Vietnam at the Age of 80

In 1969, Bernard Bachelard, Noé Graff and Olivier Parriaux anchored the flag of Vietnamese communists to the top of the cathedral spire. An action that was not claimed for half a century. Out of their anonymity, they are now celebrated as heroes in socialist Vietnam: “It was a commando operation.” A few days before his 83rd birthday, Olivier Parriaux, a retired electromagnetic optics researcher and former member of the Revolutionary Marxist Leag…