Historian specialist in the Second World War and more particularly of the Vichy regime and the French Resistance, Jean-Pierre Azéma died in Paris on July 14, at the age of 87.
No doubt the choice of this field of specialty is not entirely linked to chance. Having followed the Seminar that René Rémond (1918-2007) devoted to the Government of Vichy in 1967 in 1967, which was certainly decisive, leading the young historian to immerse himself in the period, at the risk of denouncing a literature which irritated him very early by his lack of rigor and his partisan commitments-he particularly targeted theHistory of Vichy (Fayard, 1954) by Robert Aron (1898-1975), which he said was a “Counter-model for any young researcher”. But his family history was not unrelated to this choice.
When he was born in Paris on September 30, 1937, his father, Reunionese poet Jean-Henri Azéma (1913-2000), militates with the French Action and frequented Robert Brasillach and Pierre Drieu La Rochelle. Under Vichy, he became the voice of government on Radio Paris, and works for the collaborationist and anti -Semitic weekly I am everywhere. Without political conscience, the child sees only the succession of receptions given in the beautiful apartment on rue Victor considering, in the 14the District of Paris, which bring together the fine flower of collaboration.
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