Outside the Hôtel de Ville

there was this recruiting lorry for La légion étrangère ( the Foreign Legion ).

It was unbelievably wonderful, with diaporamas of different scenes, including the jungle, a North African looking city, the desert and the Arc de Triomphe, and in the centre stuffed dummies of someone behind a computer desk dealing with someone's dossier while splendid martial music played.

It's a good thing that the lorry was unmanned and that the person behind the desk was a stuffed dummy because otherwise I think I might have signed up on the spot.
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Comments

Anonymous said…
Don't give in to the temptation! They treat recruits VERY hard indeed and if they're not French citizens, even harder. Physical violence is apparently quite commonplace and accepted - note just below the heading 'Esprit de corps' which is undoubtedly very high (unless you're one of those desperate to get out) the ominous green word 'Discipline'. My family had used to live in a legion garrison town and legionaires were almost invariably civil to townspeople - OR ELSE! They were most certainly always smartly dressed, immaculate would not be too fanciful a description, whether in or out of uniform and boy, you could tell them apart. They are 'hard men', (but not as hard as the marine special forces - but that's another story!)
12:24 am
Alan said…
Oh well.

I MIGHT be too old now anyway.
6:19 am
Anonymous said…
Too old? I wouldn't have thought so.
(In actual fact, one of them was rude to a shop assistant friend of Claire's and when it was reported, he was seen RUNNING through the streets of the town in full kit with, if I remember the story correctly, rifle held and maintained above his head in the full heat of summer. Afterwards, he went back and apologised to the lady in question.)
7:06 pm
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