French Foreign Legion information. An online project dedicated to the famous Foreign Legion.
See 2020 Christmas nativity scenes made by enlisted volunteers and legionnaires during their basic training or advanced instruction within the 4th Foreign Regiment (4e RE), the Legion’s training school based in Castelnaudary, southern France. As every year, for all enlisted volunteers and fresh legionnaires from the three basic training companies, it was their very first Christmas in the Foreign Legion.
Read more4e RE: 2020 Christmas at the school of the French Foreign Legion in Castelnaudary
The year 2020 has almost passed away and Christmas Eve is coming. So, this is a suitable time for another annual recapitulation. See what has been already done this year on this website, and my future plans for next year.
In the then French protectorate of Morocco in late 1920, four autonomous battalions of the French Foreign Legion that had spent the whole First World War there were grouped to form a new unit, nicknamed as the Regiment of Morocco. The new regiment had to go on with the pacification of the country while, at the same time, his men were the first legionnaires ever to operate in the Middle East…
Read more100 years ago: A Foreign Legion regiment was constituted in Morocco
For the very first time in history, a documentary covering the French Foreign Legion course for future sergeants was released in early December 2020, by the RMC Story, a French independent TV television channel. Directed by Pierre-Stéphane Fort, the documentary called La Légion étrangère : Objectif képi noir (Foreign Legion: Achieving the Black képi) shows the four-month course that changes the ordinary legionnaires into future non-commissioned officers. The course takes place within the 4th Foreign Regiment (4e RE) of Castelnaudary, southern France.
In late November 2020, legionnaires from the 2nd Foreign Engineer Regiment (2e REG) of the Foreign Legion participated in Cerces 2020, an annual mountain warfare exercise taking place in the French Alps in Savoie, a department in Southeastern France.
Between November 2 and December 12, 2020, yearly joint military manoeuvres called Wessex Storm take place on Salisbury Plain in Wessex, southern England. The six-week manoeuvres have to confirm the skills and readiness of the 2 PARA Battlegroup, the British Army’s leading response force, assigned to the 16 Air Assault Brigade. During the 2020 Wessex Storm exercise, a company of the French Foreign Legion’s 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP) and a US Army platoon have been included into the British battlegroup.
See a new, well-rendered documentary covering young legionnaires of the 13th Foreign Legion Half Brigade (13e DBLE) at Camp Larzac, their military base nearby La Cavalerie, a small commune in southern France. The documentary was released in late November 2020. English subtitles included.
On November 10, 2020, General Alain Lardet, the commander-in-chief of the French Foreign Legion (COMLE), officially visited the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e REI), the longest-serving regiment of the Legion at its military base in Nimes.
See a nice report made by the Foreign Legion, covering part of the Jungle Assistant Course (Stage Aide-moniteur fôret, AMF), the most difficult French military course for ordinary soldiers. Out of fifty initial volunteers, there are no more than seven legionnaires to continue the course to obtain that very prestigious certificate and get a chance to become one of the ten assistants of the Jungle Instructor…
As every year since 1918, even on this 11 November the different regiments of the French Foreign Legion were commemorating the end of World War I and paying honor to the veterans and the dead. Known as Remembrance Day (or Veterans Day) in mostly English-speaking countries, the Armistice Day is highly regarded in France.
In late March 1947, three months after the regular war started in French Indochina, a bloody rebellion erupted in Madagascar, then a French colony annexed by France (with the predominant help of legionnaires) in 1896. To stop the massacres of French settlers and to restore order on that large island in the Indian Ocean, a battalion of the Foreign Legion left North Africa. Follow the link and learn more about another already forgotten campaign of the Legion, accompanied by 40+ original, still unpublished photos from private archives…
Read moreSuppression of the 1947 Malagasy Uprising: Another forgotten campaign of the Legion