‘Beau Geste’ No More : Famed French Foreign Legion Mostly Trains, Waits

The French Foreign Legion, 8,500 strong, remains ever alert to wade over dunes, jump out of planes or kick down doors for the glory of France.

Most of the time, however, no one needs the Legion.

It’s the same Foreign Legion that King Louis-Philippe formed in 1831 and P.C. Wren made famous with the novel “Beau Geste.” While it has stayed the same, however, the world around it has changed. Camel charges are out of fashion.

Just ask legionnaire Rudi Burda, who earned medals in Indochina, Algeria and in nearly every French skirmish since. Today, he is a kindly grandfather, still in uniform but working in an office, designing greeting cards and the like.

“Oh, I miss the action a little,” said Burda, 54, a top sergeant from Austria who joined in 1949. He still grumbles that a sudden Vietnamese onslaught kept him from Dien Bien Phu.

“We were already up in Dakotas ready to jump, but just at that moment there was too much fire,” he says. “Two days later, Dien Bien Phu fell.” That was in 1954, the last battle of France’s Indochina War.

Now Burda is art director at the Kepi Blanc, the Legion’s monthly magazine, named for the jaunty white hat that is the legionnaire’s trademark.

At the next desk, a young legionnaire hangs on Burda’s every word.

“I wish something would happen somewhere, just once, so I could get to fight,” said the youth, a Belgian not long enough in the ranks to be permitted to give his name. “But I like it here.”

The Foreign Legion moved to Aubagne, a featureless industrial town near Marseille, after Algerian independence in 1962 forced it out of its proud fort at Sidi-bel-Abbes.

It brought along the imposing Monument to the Dead and its relics, including the wooden hand that Capt. Jean Danjou lost in 1854 when 2,000 Mexicans attacked and 65 legionnaires fought until the last five, out of bullets, charged with bayonets.

Like Burda, the men here keep the Legion’s books, count its socks and print its calendars and Christmas cards. Most of the 8,500 legionnaires are in bases strewn across the world.

Though their assignments are more rare, some still reflect the truth of a general from the legionnaires’ legendary past: “You, legionnaires, have become soldiers to die. Me, I will send you to where death is.”

Legionnaires joined the Multinational Force in Beirut in 1983 and lost 20 men to terrorists and snipers and accidents, in most cases forbidden from returning fire.

In 1978, the 2nd Paratroop Regiment from Corsica jumped on Kolwezi, Zaire, to stop rebels from Angola who threatened French and other European lives, and President Mobutu Sese Seko’s government.

Now, the assignments are less dramatic. This year, the 2nd Paratroop Regiment returned to Zaire to scour the jungle for French rafters lost on the river. And mostly, the Legion guards, trains and waits.

At Kourou, in French Guiana, legionnaires watch the European Space Agency launch pads and work on roads and bridges. Their only fight was a recent bloody brawl with local townsfolk.

In French Polynesia, they guard nuclear test sites--and work on roads and bridges.

A large force is based in the steaming heat of Djibouti, a former French colony on the Red Sea, and a detachment is in Mayotte, a piece of overseas France near Madagascar in the Indian Ocean.

Nearly half the men are French, but there are 104 other nationalities, including Americans. Cole Porter was one. So was Alan Seeger, the poet; Hans Hartung, the painter, six princes and a few Trappist monks.

Since the Falklands War, British recruits approach 10%. Germans, once the most numerous foreigners, total 8%.

Officers are mostly from the French army. “That proves the men fight for a flag, not money,” said Sgt. Hugh Riviere, guide at the two-story museum.

Lt. Col. J.B. Chiaroni, the Legion’s spokesman, explained, “We entrust arms to foreigners to defend our soil, as a weapon of the French army, the same as a tank or a nuclear submarine.”

About 1,100 to 1,200 men are selected each year from 6,000 to 7,000 applicants, Chiaroni said. “We give a rigorous medical examination, an intelligence test and we ask why they want to join.”

Most applicants find they just do not fit into society, Chiaroni said. “About 20% are here for security--they want to camouflage themselves for a while.”

False identities are not uncommon, but murderers and serious criminals are not welcome. “If someone has had a small problem which proves he is a man, well, that’s something else,” Chiaroni said.

The anonymity and romance attracted Wren’s Geste brothers, who signed up as Smith and Brown in the 1920s and ended up in a desert mud fort, holding off Arabs from the crenelated ramparts.

Terms Still the Same

Terms have not changed since a recruiter told Geste:

“You will be a soldier of France, entirely amenable to martial law, without any appeal whatsoever. Your friends cannot possibly buy you out, and your consul cannot help you, for five years. Nothing but death can remove you from the Legion.”

There is a slight flexibility. Men are given up to six months to reconsider, and with a very good reason, might be excused during that period. By then, after four months of boot camp, they are running 16 miles over rough terrain with a 40-pound pack.

Legionnaires get regular army pay, double the basic training and a severe disciplinary regimen. Afterward, they are recommended for French citizenship.

A ‘Problem’ With Jail

On the beach at Calvi, Corsica, a young West German in the 2nd Paratroop Regiment described himself as a typical case.

“Well, I had to get out of Germany,” he said, “because I had a little problem with jail.”

Asked what, he simply smiled and smacked his left fist into his right palm.

“It is crazy here, crazy,” he said. “After two years, everyone is crazy. Train, work, train. Crazy.”

An Associated Press correspondent encountered two British deserters several years ago in Somalia. They had walked three days across open desert to escape.

“We could not take any more,” said one, who did not give his name. “We were up at dawn, running all morning in the sun, carrying rocks, digging, working, until late at night. It was not human.”

40% Re-enlist

Chiaroni said the modern Legion applies no punishment not used in the regular army. He said 80% of recruits finish five years, and 40% of those re-enlist. But, he adds, the Legion is not soft.

In 155 years, the Legion has lost 35,763 men, including 903 officers.

The old Algerian slogan, “March or Die,” is out of fashion. However, the Legion’s motto, “Honor and Fidelity,” is emblazoned on its colors. And Legio Patria Nostra (The Legion Is Our Fatherland) is often tattooed on the arms of legionnaires.

“We have to be ready at all times to intervene wherever we are ordered,” Chiaroni said. “In between, there can be frustration.”

Excess energy is channeled into looking the part.

The Legion has retired the baggy red breeches and long overcoat, buttoned back at the legs, as described by Wren: “How much more attractive and romantic than the familiar British uniform that seemed to suggest Hyde Park and nursemaids, rather than palms, oases, Moorish cities and desert warfare.”

White Hat Remains

Their hat, the proud white kepi, remains. And creases down the back of legionnaires’ tunics are sharp enough to slice cheese.

Most legionnaires are immediately distinguished by their hair and necks, or rather the lack of either. The boule a zero-- zero cut--is not required but is fashionable. The rigorous training develops hard, ropy muscles from shoulders to ears.

On sunny afternoons in Corsica, troops practice parachuting on the beach near their base, amply populated with topless tourists who watch in awe or amusement.

In more isolated posts, morale can be a problem. For one thing, prudish politicians have abolished the “authorized military bordellos.” Chiaroni called that a mistake. “It is a simple glandular question, and you have to face it.”

Music a Tradition

Music is part of the tradition, from stirring marches to Edith Piaf’s “Je Ne Regrette Rien” (I Regret Nothing), which was sung by one regiment in Algeria in 1961 on its way to punishment after being involved in an attempt to overthrow Charles de Gaulle.

In the late 1970s, the Socialists and Communists pushed to disband the Legion. There was support from Corsica, where AWOL legionnaires killed two shepherds and a tourist. The National Assembly thought otherwise.

Each April 30, the Legion commemorates the Mexican battle, Camerone, and Danjou’s hand is paraded with the green and red colors. Afterward, everyone eats boudin, a blood sausage, and attacks the liquor ration.

And, marching at a cadence of 88 steps to the minute, they sing:

During our far-off campaigns,

Facing fever and fire,

In our pain we forget

Death which forgets us so little,

We, the Legion.”