Jean-Pierre Azéma, historian specializing in the Second World War, has died at the age of 87.

The son of a notorious collaborator, historian Jean-Pierre Azéma, who died on Monday, was an eminent specialist in the Second World War, particularly the Resistance, showing, in line with the work of Robert Paxton, the true nature of the Vichy regime.

A contributor to the magazine "L'Histoire" and an advisor to France 3 for the hit series "Un village français," Jean-Pierre Azéma, known for his inseparable scarf, was also the screenwriter for Claude Chabrol's documentary "L'oeil de Vichy." In 2012, he chaired the historical committee of the Interministerial Mission for the Anniversaries of the Two World Wars.

This professor, who taught for a long time at Sciences Po, was cited by the civil parties in the famous trial of Maurice Papon, sentenced in 1998 to 10 years of criminal imprisonment for crimes against humanity, for his role in the deportation of Jews.

He then stated that no one was "obliged, regardless of their rank, to go against their conscience" during the Occupation. "There are always loopholes, always a way to avoid complicity," he added.

His works include "La Collaboration" (1975), "Vichy" (1997), "1940, the Black Year" (2010), "The Occupation Explained to My Grandson" (2012) as well as biographies of Jean Cavaillès, hero of the Resistance, and Jean Moulin (2003).

He has written several books in collaboration (with Michel Winock and Olivier Wieviorka) and has edited collective works (with Winock, François Bédarida and others).

Jean-Pierre Azéma was born in Paris on September 30, 1937. A young history graduate, he taught at the Lakanal (Hauts-de-Seine) and Henri IV (Paris) high schools, then at the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

He is the son of journalist Jean-Henri Azéma, from Reunion Island: member of the French popular party (PPF, fascist) by Jacques Doriot, he was the voice of the radio of the Vichy regime, Radio-Paris. At the Liberation, he enlisted in the Waffen SS. Sentenced to life prison in absentia, he went into exile in Argentina in 1945 and died there in 2000.

Without his father's past, would he have become "Mr. World War II," as one of his publishers, Fayard, nicknamed him? "I didn't choose the period to unravel my complicated family history, but a certain Sigmund would certainly say that it must have counted for a lot," he told La Croix (2012).

"As a historian, I used his memory to unravel the issues surrounding the internal struggles of these far-right activists, who were undoubtedly a minority but formidable instigators of civil war," he told l'Obs (2009).

Her personal journey was all the more complex as it was her mother, Jean-Henri's first wife, who translated the important essay by the Englishman Robert Paxton, "The History of Vichy," for the Seuil publishing house in 1972.

It was historian Michel Winock, then director of collections at Seuil, who contacted him to ask him to evaluate this book before its publication, which sent shock waves through French society. In it, Paxton demonstrated, in a dispassionate tone, how the Vichy regime sought collaboration with the occupier, even anticipating Nazi demands.

Thus began for Jean-Pierre Azéma years of study on this French history which would lead him to deepen or nuance the work of Paxton, who had become a friend.

Jean-Pierre Azéma "is one of our best specialists on France during the Second World War," Mr. Winock, one of his closest friends, told AFP on Tuesday. "He was a professor much appreciated by his students for the clarity of his mind, his humor, his kindness, and the firmness of his convictions," he added.

A man of the left, Jean-Pierre Azéma was also a signatory in 2005 of the petition "Freedom for History," opposing the abuses that led, based on memory laws, to legal proceedings affecting historians and thinkers. He did not hesitate to intervene in the media to denounce any "instrumentalization," according to him, of history.

He was the father of three children and grandfather of seven grandchildren.