Hidden details of France's collaboration in the wartime Holocaust when tens of thousands of Jews were deported to their deaths are today publicly available for the first time.

Archives kept under lock and key for up to three quarters of a century have been opened for the first time, as the country faces up to its Nazi past.

All of the documents relate to the Vichy Regime, which was led by Marshal Philippe Petain between 1940 and 1944.

This was a time of often enthusiastic collaboration with the Third Reich, as French police and paramilitary organisations were among the many who rounded up 'enemies of the state' and sent them to Germany for extermination.

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Shame: A French prostitute has her head shaved as a public humiliation after having sexual relations with Germans. France is having to come to terms with the part it played in collaboration with Nazis during the war

Round-up: A photograph taken between 1941 and 1943 shows Jewish people arriving at the transit camp of Pithiviers, near Orleans, where they were placed under French police supervision before being transported to concentration camps. France's action is a step in living up to the country's Nazi past

Many of the 76,000 Jews killed came from major cities including Paris, where an occupying German garrison worked closely with their French allies.

Numerous crimes were also committed in the so called 'free zone' down south, where Petain ran his puppet government in the spa town of Vichy.

The newly opened archives can be 'freely consulted' by civil servants and historical researchers 'subject to the declassification of documents covered by national defense secrecy rules', according to a new decree.

They will included disturbing stories of how French Jews were pinpointed and then betrayed, and names of those responsible will be listed.

It comes six years after France's Council of State, the country's highest judicial body, said the Vichy government 'held responsibility' for deportations, and could not solely blame them on the Germans.

It ruled that Nazi officials did not force the French to betray their fellow citizens, but that anti-Semitic persecution was carried out willingly by organisations including Paris police and SNCF, the national railway.

Persecution: Jewish deportees in the French Drancy transit camp in 1942, their last stop before the German concentration camps. France is today opening its archives of the names of those who helped the Germans

Horror: This picture taken between 1941 and 1943 shows a French policemen guarding the transit camp of Pithiviers near Orleans. Many of the 76,000 Jews killed came from major cities including Paris, where an occupying German garrison worked closely with their French allies

Yesterday former Resistance fighter Lucien Guyot said the Petain government 'went far beyond the Germans' expectations, in particular with the deportation of 'foreign' Jews, including children, to concentration camps'.

Numerous crimes were also committed in the 'free zone' in the south of the country where Petain, a First World War hero, ran his government.

Historians believe the archives may clear up what happened to Resistance leader Jean Moulin, who died in 1943 after being caught by the Nazis.

Some say he committed suicide while others say the Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie – the Butcher of Lyon – beat him to death.

Either way, there has long been speculation as to how Moulin fell into Nazi hands in the first place.

He was captured at a Resistance meeting in Lyon – Barbie stormed the house and arrested everyone except for Rene Hardy, a Frenchman who some think was an informer. Hardy was later cleared of all charges of treason.

There have also been furious denials of claims that Moulin was betrayed by Raymond Aubrac, a Jewish member of the Resistance. Aubrac continued to fight to clear his name right up until his death in 2012 aged 97.

Barbie worked for Western intelligence agencies after the war, mainly in South America, but was extradited to France in 1983 to stand trial for crimes against humanity. He died in prison in 1991.

Historians believe the archives may clear up what happened to Resistance leader Jean Moulin (pictured), who died in 1943 after being caught by the Nazis

Some say Jean Moulin committed suicide while others say the Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (pictured), nicknamed the Butcher of Lyon, beat him to death

Dangerous liaisons: A French woman poses with a Nazi officer at the Eiffel Tower during the period of German occupation in the Second World War, when many French people lived in close quarters with the enemy under the Vichy regime

Festival atmosphere: A photograph shows a French woman cavorting with members of Hitler's SS in a bar

Murky past: The French struggle come to terms with the fact many women had intimate relationships with Nazi officers during the Second World War

Post-war French governments had earlier refused to acknowledge any role in the Holocaust by the Vichy regime.

The ruling in 2009 was partially criticised for stating that there would be no payments for the survivors or families of victims, because all had been compensated 'as much as was possible, for all the losses suffered'.

But lawyers around the world, and especially in the USA and Israel, are working hard to change that.

The Council called for a 'solemn recognition of the state's responsibility and of collective prejudice suffered' by the deportees.

During his term of office, which ended in 2007, President Jacques Chirac made the most outspoken reference to the Holocaust by a French head of state, saying: 'These dark hours forever sully our history and are an insult to our past and our traditions.

'Yes, the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French state.'