 He emigrated to France with his family in 1956 due to the rise of antisemitism in Egypt.He studied at the École normale supérieure de Saint-Cloud, the Sorbonne, and the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.Rousso's notable work includes a seminal book on Vichy France entitled "The Vichy Syndrome" (1987) where he coined a phrase commonly used to describe the era, "passé qui ne passe pas" ("past that doesn't pass" - the expression was possibly inspired by Ernst Nolte's June 6, 1986 article entitled "Die Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehen will" — "The past that does not want to pass away").