4e RE: 2022 Specialist Training Company | French Foreign Legion Information

See an interesting videoclip dedicated to the Specialist Training Company, 4th Foreign Regiment (4e RE). According to the company commander, his 80 instructors train more than 2,000 candidates a year in 15 different specialized courses.

The Specialist Training Company (Compagnie d’Instruction des Spécialistes, 5e CIS or simply CIS) used to be the youngest company of the 4e RE, the Foreign Legion’s school regiment, until the creation of the 6th Reserve Company in November 2016.

The specialist training, carried out within the then autonomous GILE (Training Group), left Algeria for Corsica in mid-1962. In 1972, the GILE was assigned to the recreated 2e RE. However, when GILE moved to Castelnaudary in France in 1976 to become a new training regiment there, the CIS company was left behind with the 2e RE in Corsica. Both the regiment and the CIS left Corsica in late 1983 for Nimes in France.

Eventually, the long lost child rejoined the 4e RE – the successor to the GILE – in Castelnaudary in August 1986.

Nowadays, each young volunteer knows the company thanks to the car driver licence course that takes place at the end of the four-month basic instruction. Later, the vast majority of the legionnaires return to “Castel” to undergo additional specialized courses with the CIS (truck drivers, mechanics, administration workers, cooks and waiters, radio operators, combat medics, etc.).

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