DÉFENSE ZONE
In this second extract from its magazine feature on the French Foreign Legion, Défense Zone looks at the training of new recruits. Over several months of physically and mentally demanding basic training, the young recruits gradually enter the “Legion mould”, a necessary step in forging these future elite fighters of the French armed forces.
First steps
Before going into combat, the young recruits must attend numerous instruction sessions, starting with those on soldierly discipline and the use of French, from now on their new language.
In Castelnaudary, the first month takes place behind closed doors on one of the regiment’s four training farms. Lost somewhere in the vast Aude countryside, between fields and forests, it is at the Bel Air farm that some forty volunteers learn to obey their instructors’ orders, march in step, sing, iron their uniforms, handle the Famas, bivouac and toughen up. The days are long. From 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., the instructors, legionnaires who all went through the same training, never leave the young recruits’ side. “For some, it is very hard to learn a new language easily and keep up with the physical training programme”, one of the instructors confides, “but the Legion method always works in the end”.
Legionnaires, all equal
Some have already had military experience in their home country. “I have a clerk who was an officer in the Russian navy; he is a lance corporal and does not wish to become an officer, or even necessarily a non-commissioned officer”, says Lieutenant Colonel Thomas, head of the training and employment office, by way of example, before continuing: “We do not judge a legionnaire on what he has done, but on what he wants to prove on joining the Legion. All legionnaires are equal, whether they were doctors, engineers, cashiers or army generals”. What drives a foreign officer to join the French armed forces? Beyond the complexity of personal paths and stories, which very few legionnaires care to dwell on, it is a safe bet that France’s many military operations around the world are a very strong motivation.
Legio Patria Nostra
The word legionnaires use most often is “family”. For every volunteer, the Legion is a new homeland. This can be found in the code of honour that every recruit must learn by heart even before being able to speak French: “Each legionnaire is your brother in arms, whatever his nationality, race or religion. You will always show him the close solidarity that must unite members of the same family”.
This aspect is even more visible during the end-of-year festivities, when every legionnaire, from private to senior officer, is forbidden to leave the regiment on Christmas Eve. Why? Christmas is traditionally a family celebration and for those far from home, that family is now the French Foreign Legion. So every 24 December, all legionnaires dine and celebrate Christmas together, in their new family. This tradition, like many others, sets the rhythm of a legionnaire’s life and makes possible that unique alchemy by which a Nepali, a Brazilian, a Russian and many others become brothers in arms and go into combat together, sometimes at the risk of their lives.
You can find the full feature on the French Foreign Legion in issue 6 of Défense Zone
The book “Légionnaire”
For a few weeks now, Défense Zone has been offering its latest book devoted to the French Foreign Legion: 180 photos tracing the young recruit’s journey from basic training to the most recent overseas operations.
To order the book, simply visit our online bookshop: click here to check whether it is still in stock.
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