On Wednesday evening, September 2, 2026, the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e REI) commemorated the 123rd anniversary of the Battle of El Moungar, the 1903 desert engagement whose date became the regiment’s main holiday. After last year’s ceremony at the regimental barracks in Nîmes, southern France, the event returned to the Roman amphitheater (Arena) in the center of the city, built in the first century AD and still in use today.
Foreign Legion: 2026 Changes of Command in Five Regiments
In summer 2026, the French Foreign Legion saw five changes of command at the regimental level, reflecting the French Army’s regular two-year command rotation cycle. These changes affected units stationed in metropolitan France and overseas, including some of the Legion’s most prominent operational formations.
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Foreign Legion: 2026 Bastille Day
July 14 marks France’s national holiday, Bastille Day. Beyond the main military parade in Paris, where the French Foreign Legion was represented once again this year, Legion units also take part in local celebrations held across the country and in France’s overseas territories.
2e REI: NATO’s Allied Reaction Force
Starting in early July 2026, legionnaires of the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e REI) will form the core of a forward battalion held at 48-hour readiness for a one-year rotation as part of NATO’s Allied Reaction Force (ARF) — the alliance’s revamped rapid response mechanism, which replaced the earlier NATO Response Force.
Alan Seeger: The American Poet in the French Foreign Legion
In northern France on July 4, 1916 — American Independence Day — a tall, twenty-eight-year-old Harvard graduate rose from a wheat field near the village of Belloy-en-Santerre and charged a line of German machine guns. He was not French, and his country was not yet at war. He was Alan Seeger, member of the French Foreign Legion, and within minutes he would be dead on the ground he had chosen to defend two years earlier. Today he is remembered as one of the most famous foreign volunteers ever to serve in the ranks of the Legion. A poet whose life, and whose death, became a symbol of the Franco-American bond forged in the trenches of the Great War.
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2e REI: 2026 Training Alongside NATO Allies at Camp des Garrigues
From May 4 to 20, 2026, the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e REI), stationed in Nîmes in southern France, conducted three weeks of intensive field training at Camp des Garrigues, a large military training area located near the regiment’s garrison town.
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50 Years Ago: Deadly Accident in Africa
50 years ago, on May 24, 1976, a helicopter transporting Foreign Legion elements crashed during a military exercise in the Horn of Africa. Six legionnaires died immediately; another two died from their injuries later. At the time, this was the deadliest day for the Legion since the end of the Algerian War in 1962. Although largely forgotten today, even in France, this sad event and its victims should be remembered.
2e REP: Exercise Libecciu 2026
From May 11 to 20, 2026, Exercise Libecciu 2026 took place across several regions of western and central France, primarily in Nouvelle-Aquitaine and Centre-Val de Loire. The exrcise was conducted by the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP), an elite airborne regiment of the Foreign Legion. Based at Calvi, Corsica, it serves as one of the French Army’s rapid-response units.
Foreign Legion: 2026 Victory in Europe Day
On May 8, 2026, French Foreign Legion units commemorated the 81st anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, marking the definitive overall surrender of Nazi Germany to the Allied forces in 1945. As every year, legionnaires took part in ceremonies held both in France and overseas to honor the veterans and fallen soldiers of the conflict.
Foreign Legion: 2026 Camerone Day
On April 30, 2026, the French Foreign Legion observed the 163rd anniversary of the Battle of Camerone, the legendary action that forged the Legion’s identity and esprit de corps. On that day in Mexico in 1863, a company of 62 legionnaires led by Captain Jean Danjou stood against some 2,000 Mexican soldiers. The legionnaires refused to surrender and fought until only three of them remained standing. As every year, the anniversary was commemorated across all Legion units and garrisons, in France and abroad. Below are images from several of these ceremonies.
2e REI, 1er REC: Exercise Cold Response 26
In March 2026, Exercise Cold Response 26 is underway across northern Norway and northern Finland. French forces are among the allied troops taking part in the Arctic training event, including infantry and cavalry units of the French Foreign Legion.