Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 27, 1993 TAG: 9306270174
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Composition: 8,500 men from 110 different countries, forming 10 regiments of infantry, cavalry, paratroops and engineers. Forty percent enlisted men French; 90 percent officers French.
Deployment: Regiments in southern France and French possessions or former colonies: Djibouti, French Guiana, Tahiti, Indian Ocean island of Mayotte. Others with U.N. peacekeepers in ex-Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Somalia.
Enlistment: Open to men aged 18-40. Average age 23. First enlistment five years, after which can seek French citizenship. One applicant in seven accepted. Sixty percent re-enlist.
Anonymity: The Legion does not accept serious criminals. But an applicant may enlist under a false name. Doing so, he loses his civil rights to marry and own a car or home until he takes up his real name or finishes his enlistment.
Kepi blanc: The trademark white hat, or kepi blanc, has been the Legion's official headgear since 1939. Legion kepis were previously beige, but became white by vigorous scrubbing. The white neck-screen popularized in films was actually a cover worn over the hat. The kepi blanc today is dress headgear. A Legionnaire normally wears a green beret or helmet.
Quote: "From the moment I had heard of Michael's flight, I had had, somewhere just below the level of consciousness, a vague remembrance of the existence of a romantic-sounding, adventurous corps of soldiers of fortune, called the French Foreign Legion."
- Ex-Legionnaire P.C. Wren, "Beau Geste."
Keywords:
FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION
by CNB