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Thread: French Foreign Legion collection

  1. #1
    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
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    Default French Foreign Legion collection

    Just FYI for the "romantic warriors" amongst us - Fabled Foreign Legion Fading With Time by Slobodan Lekic.

    The Foreign Legion isn't what it used to be. Murderers on the run are no longer welcome, and unhappy recruits have a year to back out without being branded deserters.

    These days a bigger issue faces the 175-year-old force that made its name fighting France's overseas battles in jungle and desert. Its key role - to be a crack professional force available for rapid, no-questions-asked deployment in far-flung conflicts - has all but evaporated.

    In campaigns from Algeria to Vietnam, Madagascar to Mexico, Legionnaires made up the bulk of the combat forces and suffered most of the casualties. Even in Bosnia a decade ago, serving as U.N. peacekeepers for the first time, they made up a significant portion of the French troops there.

    But this summer, when Paris contributed a 2,000-strong contingent to the U.N. force in Lebanon, it included only 200 Legion engineers.

    For a 7,770-strong force with a carefully nurtured identity epitomized by its trademark white hats or kepis, there's no longer much to set the Legion apart from the rest of the French army. Four years after France ended conscription, all 250,000 members of the armed forces are like the Legionnaires - professionals and volunteers...

    "They are an anachronism, the last remnants of a medieval mercenary tradition," said Dominique Moisi, a political analyst. "While they were the only professionals in a conscript army, they made sense, but not now that everybody else is professional too."

    Ironically, the decline comes as the Internet has opened whole new world of recruiting for the Legion which already boasts 130 nationalities in its ranks. The Web site http://www.legion-recrute.com gives instructions in 13 European languages on how to apply...

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    Small Wars Journal SWJED's Avatar
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    Default Now that I have posted this...

    ... it begs the question - do we (the U.S.) need our own version of the French Foreign Legion?

    There is a thread on that theme:Create a U.S. Foreign Legion
    Last edited by davidbfpo; 12-31-2017 at 12:22 PM.

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    Moderator Steve Blair's Avatar
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    Default

    Some would argue that with the Marine Corps we already have our own Foreign Legion...

    Seriously, though, it might benefit the Marines to look at the old Lodge Act, which opened service to non-nationals fleeing Communist governments in the 1950s. Something similar might prove useful for them.

    As for an actual Legion...I can see way too many political problems for the US in setting up such a force. "Foreign Killers Hired by US Government" "CIA Mercenaries Given US Uniforms" Take your pick.

    I would also hazard a guess that the French are being premature in phasing out the Legion. All professionals are not created equal, and the Legion brings certain intangibles to the table that the regular French army will be hard-pressed to meet, in addition to being able to draw from a larger recruiting pool.

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    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default The legend of the Legion

    More of an update on the original post eleven years later:https://aeon.co/essays/why-young-men...foreign-legion
    davidbfpo

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