3e REI: 2026 Fourragère Day | French Foreign Legion Information

On September 12, 2026, the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment (3e REI) celebrated Fourragère Day, its regimental day, in Kourou, French Guiana. The day honors the history and sacrifices of the regiment and of its predecessor, the Foreign Legion Marching Regiment (RMLE, 1915–1920). Usually held on September 14, the date was moved this year because the regiment is currently committed to protecting the Guiana Space Center.

The ceremony was presided over by General Alain Lardet, a former commander of the 3e REI (2011–2013) and later of the entire Foreign Legion (2020–2023). Also attending were Mr. Poussier, the prefect of French Guiana and the French government’s senior representative in the territory, and General Laborie, commander of the French Armed Forces in French Guiana. The program began at the Foreign Legion burial section in Kourou. It continued at Quartier Forget, the regiment’s base, and ended with an evening parade along Avenue de France.

The celebration marks the 108th anniversary of one of the RMLE’s best-known World War I actions. From September 2 to 14, 1918, the regiment fought under Lt. Colonel Rollet on the Laffaux Plateau, north of Soissons in northern France. There it broke through a sector of the Hindenburg Line, a heavily fortified German defensive system widely considered impregnable. The breakthrough shattered Germany’s last major line of defense and contributed significantly to its defeat, with the armistice ending the war two months later. The legionnaires took more than 500 prisoners and captured artillery pieces and a large amount of equipment. The cost was high, however: 275 men, including 10 officers, were killed and 1,158 were wounded, about half of the RMLE’s strength at the time.

On November 10, 1918, the action earned the regiment its ninth army-level citation, a formal commendation for bravery published in the orders of the French Army. With nine citations during the war, the RMLE was awarded the double fourragère, a braided cord worn on the left shoulder of the uniform, in the colors of the Legion of Honor and the 1914–1918 Croix de Guerre (War Cross). For its service in 1918, including the fighting on the Laffaux Plateau, the regiment’s flag also received the Médaille militaire (Military Medal), a rare honor for a unit. The medal was presented in Tlemcen, Algeria, on September 14, 1919, exactly one year after the breakthrough. That date has been the 3e REI’s regimental day ever since.

Together, these awards made the RMLE one of the two most decorated regiments in the French Army, a distinction the 3e REI still holds more than a century later.

—