Home » Images » 0001 Pictures From History » CPA0000294

Vietnam: Foreign Legion poster showing soldiers of the 1st Parachute Batallion

The French Foreign Legion (French: Légion étrangère) is a unique military unit in the French Army established in 1831. The legion was specifically created for foreign nationals wishing to serve in the French Armed Forces.

Commanded by French officers, it is also open to French citizens, who amounted to 24% of the recruits as of 2007. The purpose of the Legion was to remove disruptive elements from society and put them to use fighting the enemies of France. Recruits included failed revolutionaries from the rest of Europe, soldiers from the disbanded foreign regiments, and troublemakers in general, both foreign and French. Algeria was designated as the Legion's home.

The Legion was primarily used, as part of the Armée d'Afrique, to protect and expand the French colonial empire during the 19th century, but it also fought in almost all French wars including the Franco-Prussian War and both World Wars.

The Foreign Legion has remained an important part of the French Army, surviving three Republics, The Second French Empire, two World Wars, the rise and fall of mass conscript armies, the dismantling of the French colonial empire and the French loss of the legion's base, Algeria.