While around 1,350 French soldiers have been patrolling in Paris since the attacks of 7th January 2015, legionnaires from the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1er REC) are patrolling now in Marseille, the second largest city in France.
After the recent attacks in Paris, the French government decided to deploy another hundreds of soldiers to the capital to boost security. In Paris, there had already been around 1,000 military personnel since the end of December as part of Vigipirate, France’s national security alert system. Since January 11, around 1,350 French soldiers have been patrolling in the streets. The members of the Foreign Legion are among these troops: legionnaires and even the reservists (non-legionnaires) serving within the Legion.
As previously mentioned, Exrcise Iberian Star 2014 took part in Spain in November 2014. Spanish legionnaires from Spanish Legion’s VIII Bandera (8th Battalion) and French legionnaires from the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e REI) were involved in this exercise, together with Welsh and Irish soldiers from the British Army. See video.
In the second half of last month, November 2014, Exercise IBERIAN STAR 2014 took place on the Chinchilla Training Area in the province of Albacete, southern Spain. Legionnaires of the French Foreign Legion and the Spanish Legion (former Spanish Foreign Legion), together with British soldiers were involved in the exercise.