Jean-Pierre Azéma


Jean-Pierre Azéma was a French historian.

Life and career

Azéma was a member of the scientific counsel for the Institut François Mitterrand, an organisation founded by François Mitterrand with the goal of "contributing to the propagation of knowledge on the political and social history of modern France". He supported Ségolène Royal in the 2007 French presidential election.
Azéma was the author of several prominent historical works, which made him something of an authority amongst France's historians.
A specialist on World War II, more specifically of the Vichy Regime and the French Resistance, Azéma was a university lecturer and taught history at the Institut d'études politiques de Paris.
He was also one of the historians called as witness for the trial of Maurice Papon,. He was also one of the authors of the film The Eye of Vichy by Claude Chabrol. He attended the conference organised on the 60th anniversary of the death of Jean Moulin.
Azéma died on 14 July 2025, at the age of 87. He was the father of the Vichy historian Arianne Azéma.

Select works

  • 6 juin 44, 2004
  • Jean Moulin : le politique, le rebelle, le résistant, 2003
  • Jean Cavaillès résistant ou La pensée en actes, 2002
  • De Munich à la Libération: 1938–1944, Cambridge University Press, 1990, new edition, 2002
  • Vichy : 1940–1944, 2000
  • 1938–1948 : les années de tourmente : de Munich à Prague : dictionnaire critique, 1995
  • Histoire de l'extrême droite en France, 1994 Seuil,
  • Jean Moulin et la Résistance en 1943, Jean-Pierre Azéma, Institut d'histoire du temps présent, 1994
  • Les libérations de la France, 1993
  • La France des années noires, 1993
  • Le régime de Vichy et les Français, 1992
  • La IIIe République : 1870–1940, Calmann-Lévy, 1970, new edition, 1991
  • 1940, l'année terrible, Seuil, 1990,
  • Paris Under the Occupation, Gilles Perrault, Jean-Pierre Azéma, Deutsch, 1989,
  • Les communistes français de Munich à Châteaubriand : 1938–1941, 1987
  • Histoire générale politique et sociale : la France des années sombres, les années 40, 1987
  • La collaboration : 1940–1944, 1975
  • Les Communards, 1964 Éditions du seuil, 1970