Like the other regiments of the French Foreign Legion, even the 1st Foreign Engineer Regiment (1er REG) and the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1er REC) are to be largely deployed overseas this year.
According to Lieutenant Colonel Rémy, the commander of the 1er REG’s Operations & Training Bureau, more than two thirds of the regiment (i.e. 600+ legionnaires or four companies) are to be deployed this year overseas, after an intensive training in 2019. The main part of them is currently on route to the Sahel region of Africa (Operation Barkhane) to support other Foreign Legion regiments being deployed there too (e.g. 600 men of the 2e REI) and open roads for them. Other elements of the 1er REG will deploy to Liban in Middle East (Operation Daman within the international mission FINUL) and to French Guiana in South America. All of these deployments will last between four and six months.
As for the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment, General Mistral, the current head of the Legion, stated that the 1er REC will see in 2020 the “regiment’s most important deployment since Operation Daguet in 1991” (Gulf War in Iraq, where almost all squadrons of the 1er REC took part) to replace French forces participating in Operation Barkhane in the Sahel. The 1er REC men should operate there under the title of Task Force Centurion (a battalion-sized unit). Currently, the regiment’s 3rd Squadron is to be finishing their deployment in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, where the Legion cavalrymen have been reinforcing French troops since mid-October.
The year 2020 is important for Foreign Legion regiments because of large deployments overseas. Besides the 1er REC and 1er REG, it affected also the 2e REI, three companies of the 13e DBLE, as well as paratroopers from the 2e REP.
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Related posts:
2e REI + 1er REG + 1er REC: Training before deployment
1er REG: Egypt, Djibouti and Mozambique
1er REC: Training in Dominican Republic