2e REG: French Guiana in 2026 | French Foreign Legion Information

In early September 2026, the 1st Company of the 2nd Foreign Engineer Regiment (2e REG) returned to the regiment’s home base at Saint-Christol, in southeastern France, after a five-month deployment to French Guiana, France’s overseas department on the northeastern coast of South America. Commanded by Captain Clément S., the company had deployed to the territory in early April.

In French Guiana, the legionnaires became the 4th Company of the 9th Marine Infantry Regiment (9e RIMa), one of the French Army units permanently stationed in the territory. Like other French overseas garrisons, the 9e RIMa relies on rotating detachments from mainland France to fill its ranks, with units typically serving tours of four to five months. The regiment is permanently stationed in Cayenne, the capital of French Guiana.

Over the course of the deployment, the Legion combat engineers took on a wide range of missions. They built and renovated forward outposts in the jungle, conducted area-control patrols, river traffic monitoring, and took part in Operation Harpie, the long-running French military and law-enforcement campaign aimed at dismantling illegal gold-mining networks that continue to poison the rivers and plague the territory’s vast Amazon rainforests along the borders with Suriname and Brazil. The company posted notable results: 70 mining sites and 43 illegal camps destroyed over the course of the deployment. The 2e REG legionnaires also maintained a steady presence among local native communities.

Coincidentally, the regiment’s 2nd Company had returned from its own four-month deployment to Martinique, in the Caribbean, just days earlier at the end of August.

2e REG - Foreign Legion - French Guiana - 1st Company - 2026

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