In 2020, around 750 legionnaires of the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e REI) will deploy overseas, according to their commanding officer, Colonel Arnaud Guerry. The vast majority of the men take part in anti-terrorist Operation Barkhane in Mali, West Africa.
Rescue mission in Loyada: 44th anniversary
The paratroopers of the French Foreign Legion, together with French elite counter-terrorism policemen and cavalrymen of the Legion’s 13th Half-brigade, participated in a hostage rescue mission 44 years ago, in early February 1976. The mission to rescue 31 French children kidnapped by local militants took place at Loyada, a small border village in then French Somaliland, today’s Djibouti (Horn of Africa). See more information.
38 years ago: 1982 Mont Garbi Accident
38 years ago, on 3 February 1982, a common French military exercise had to take place in Djibouti, a country in the Horn of Africa. In the morning, a French Foreign Legion airborne platoon were lined up at a French air base. It was their only 10th day in Africa. The Legion paratroopers were ordered to carry out a routine training jump over a drop zone located nord-west of the capital. The legionnaires boarded their aircraft and took off…
DLEM: 2020 Video Presentation
See a short but new official video presentation of the Foreign Legion Detachment in Mayotte (DLEM), the last permanent post of the French Foreign Legion to remain in Africa.
165 years ago: Another French Foreign Legion organized
See the history of another Foreign Legion organized in France, this time in early 1855, to take part in the Crimean War against the Russian Empire. The second Legion was composed of the Swiss exclusively and distinguished from the first one by their green uniform. It eventually became the 1st Foreign Regiment and was sent to Algeria. The unit lost its Swiss character in 1859.
Read more165 years ago: Another French Foreign Legion organized
2e REI: Training for Africa 2020
See a video of a platoon from the 2nd Foreign Infantry Regiment (2e REI) that is training in France before their deployment to Mali in West Africa, to participate there in anti-terrorist Operation Barkhane.
1er REG: A legionnaire “powerman” in Iraq
Corporal Pavel of the 1st Foreign Engineer Regiment (1er REG), one of the two engineer regiments of the French Foreign Legion, is currently deployed to Iraq, as part of Operation Chammal, a French military operation in Iraq and Syria. He serves as a skilful electrical mechanic.
1er REC: Raider Fury with U.S. Marines
In December 2019, the legionnaires of the 1st Foreign Cavalry Regiment (1er REC) participated in a three-day Exercise Raider Fury alongside U.S. Marines, at Camp Carpiagne (France), the garrison of the 1er REC. See videos.
2e REG: An exercise for commandos
In November 2019, two elite units of the Foreign Legion’s 2nd Foreign Engineer Regiment (2e REG) conducted a joint exercise to train an infiltration mission into hostile terrain. See the video.
70 years ago: The last mounted company disappeared
See a complete history of the legendary Foreign Legion companies mounted on mules. The last of them disappeared 70 years ago in Morocco, in late December 1949. Elite high-mobile units, consisting of hard men loving the autonomous life far from the civilization, they played crucial role in the successful conquest of Algeria’s South Oran between the 1880s and 1900s. Shortly afterwards, they took part in the Pacification of Morocco and were fighting there until the mid-1930s.
65 years ago: Little known repair units in Africa are disbanded
Learn about the history of the four almost forgotten Foreign Legion repair units serving in Africa during the ongoing war in Indochina. Organized in North Africa in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, they provided support to Legion and French regular units in Algeria, Tunisia and even deep in French West Africa, which was really exceptional.
Read more65 years ago: Little known repair units in Africa are disbanded