You can't join if you're married unless you lieabout your status which a lot of people do. Up until recently, women weren't allowed to join. In October 2000, newspapers around the country reported the Legion was ordered to accept women into its ranks. But according to a statement by Legion spokesman Lt. Col. Yann Peron, the announcement that women would be allowed to join was due to a "miscommunication." Changes that will allow women to serve in almost every function in the French Army would not apply to the Legion, he said, although female officers may be able to transfer from military schools. The details are yet to be decided.
You will need a valid passport and possibly a visa to enter France so you can go the place where you sign up. You must get to Europe and France at your own expense. You are not reimbursed if they don't accept you, so if you don't qualify, make sure you have enough money to get home. Once you're accepted and in training, you won't be able to phone or write anyone for roughly two months. After that there are no further restrictions on contacting the outside world either during basic training or in your combat regiment.
Initially, you sign up for five years (see the contract below) and this can be done at any of the Foreign Legion enlistment offices which are scattered all over France. After a preliminary medical examination and some questions, you'll be tentatively accepted and transferred (at their expense) to the Selection Center of the Legion Headquarters in Aubagne, France which is located about 10 miles from Marseille. Here you'll undergo a more extensive medical exam, an IQ test and a physical fitness test. If you pass, you sign on the dotted line for five years of service and and agree to serve wherever they send you with no questions asked. If you fail, you're immediately pushed out the door, returned to civilian life and you go home at your own expenses.
The physical test they'll give you consists of being able to run six miles with ease, do thirty pushups and fifty situps, climb a 20-foot rope without using your feet, run five miles with twenty-five pounds on your back in less than an hour, and do eight chinups with your palms away from you as you grip the bar.
If you make the cut and sign the contract, you'll receive four months of basic military instruction at the 4th Foreign Regiment located in Castel after which you are posted to a regiment. Castel is the main training facility of the Foreign Legion and is located in southern France, about 30 miles from southeast of Toulouse. Your job will depend on the needs of the Legion and can range from an ordinary clerk to a commando. Promotion through the ranks will depend upon your physical capacities, your IQ, overall service record and leadership abilities. Some decisions will have to be made toward the end of your contract. At the end of the initial enlistment, you can extend your career by signing successive contracts of anywhere from six months to three years. When you reach fifteen years of service, you are entitled to a retirement pension that will be paid to you regardless of where in the world you choose to live. You'll have to decide if you want to re-enlist and extend your contract or apply for French citizenship or just go home. A common occurrence faced by many Legionnaires is being suddenly informed of a backlog of taxes that accumulated while they were in the service.
Contrary to the common myth, the Legion will not give refuge to criminals. In fact, the Legion works with Interpol to thoroughly check a volunteer's background, and one in five volunteers will not meet the qualifications. In addition, contrary to popular belief, the Legion is not a group of mercenaries. Rather, the Legion takes its orders from French officers and complies with French army regulations and tactics.
As a Legionnaire you'll be clothed, fed, accommodated, and medically cared for and how much they pay you will depend on your rank, your qualifications and your length of time in the service. On special missions, there are bonuses paid. You are paid once per month in cash. You can't have a bank account outside the Legion. You can deposit a portion of your pay into an account the Legion maintains for you or arrange to have it transferred to your home country. Your Legion account does not pay interest. At this writing a first-termer receives 5500 French francs ($756.13) a month, a Corporal 6,000 FF ($824.87) and a Chief Corporal 6,300FF ($866.00).
Meals in the Legion are mediocre at best, nothing like you'll find at even a mediocre French restaurant. Breakfast isn't much more than bread and coffee. Noon and evening meals are comprised of some type of meat and vegetable, cheese and dessert. Beer and wine are available on tap to use at your discretion. In the combat regiments it is mandatory that you eat at noon but you have the option of declining the evening fare.
It's a coin toss as to what type of specialized training you'll receive, so anything can happen. If you're assigned to parachute training, you'll join the 2nd REP and start receiving training immediately upon arriving at the training center. There are special quarters there for paratroopers. The course lasts three to five weeks, depending on the availability of the aircraft. To earn your wings, you must complete six jumps with one jump at night. Commando training centers are located throughout France. The training focuses on advanced soldiering techniques during a three week period. You are likely to complete at least one commando course during your career in the Legion. On one of these courses, a week is completed in Mont Louis in the Pyrenees mountains with the second week conducted at Collioure, located on the coast south of Perpignan. The final week consolidates the lessons learned during the first two course. Instruction covers rappelling and scaling techniques; booby traps and explosives, hand-to-hand combat; building rope bridges; swimming in open waters without a life vest and eating raw sardines and mussels.
Africa is a regular destination of the Legion. The only countries you would normally conduct operations in are Chad and Djibouti though the possibility always exists for French troops to be deployed anywhere. French interests in Africa are still widespread. Africa is a volatile continent due to incessant tribal disputes and there is a regular need for foreign intervention.
You are entitled to 15 days of paid leave during your first year, increasing to 45 days after five years of service which is a better leave policy than the U.S. military and many civilian jobs in the United States. While on leave you are required to remain in France and inform your regiment where you are staying and of any moving around you do. You will be issued a card that allows you a 75 percent discount on all train travel within France.
Desertion is a big problem in the Legion because of the harsh lifestyle. Too many people join without considering what they are getting themselves into. If you decide you've had enough and choose to desert, experience deserters say the easiest way to desert is to wait until you or your unit is granted leave, then find yourself a way out of France. .
Information provided by the Embassy of France in Washington D.C. and the French Foreign Legion in Paris
