History: 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment | French Foreign Legion Information
Discover the history of the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e REP), currently the only airborne unit within the French Foreign Legion. The unit is best known for its 1978 operation in Kolwezi in Central Africa’s Zaire and the rescue of more than 2,000 European hostages. Organized in Algeria in late 1955, the regiment participated in the Algerian War until 1962. It left the country in 1967 as the last French airborne unit and was stationed in Corsica.
Between the late 1960s and the early 2020s, the 2e REP took part in several campaigns. Its men fought in Chad, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Afghanistan, Mali, and Niger. They also deployed to Djibouti, Lebanon, Rwanda, Gabon, Somalia, the ex-Yugoslavia, and the Central African Republic. Currently, the 2e REP is still considered one of the most elite units in the world.
2e REP: Activation in Algeria in 1955
After its return from French Indochina in Southeast Asia to Algeria in France’s North Africa in late November 1955, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Battalion (2e BEP) – the most decorated among the French battalions that participated in the First Indochina War (1946-1954) – was ordered to transform into a new regiment by merging with another Foreign Legion airborne unit: the 3rd Foreign Parachute Regiment (3e REP).
Therefore, on December 1, 1955, the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment (2e Regiment Etranger de Parachutistes, 2e REP) was born. The new regiment inherited the 2e BEP’s number, history, and traditions, as well as the red fourragère (in the colors of the Légion d’Honneur order): a decoration the battalion received due to the six unit citations at the Army level it earned during the war in Indochina. (France’s highest possible citation – mention in dispatches – a unit or a person could receive.)
The 2e BEP men formed the 1st and 2nd Companies of the new regiment, while those from the 3e REP constituted the 3rd and 4th Companies. Apart from the HQ and Combat Support Companies (the latter being motorized), a new element appeared within the legionnaires-paratroopers: the Reconnaissance Squadron (ER). It was equipped mainly with Jeeps.
Lieutenant Colonel Alfred de Vismes took command of the regiment, which consisted of 65 officers, 199 NCOs, and 1,023 legionnaires (1,287 men in total). Major Masselot, the last commander of the 2e BEP, became his deputy.
The 2e REP was installed in the Caserne de France, an old barracks in the center of Philippeville (called Skikda today), a port city in northeastern Algeria’s Constantine Department, on the Mediterranean. The other parts were posted in the Caserne Mangin and at Camp Pehau, the latter located on the outskirts of the city, near the beach.
2e REP: Algerian War in 1955 and 1956
Since the departure of the 2e BEP from Algeria to Southeast Asia, the situation had deteriorated considerably in French North Africa. The year 1954 brought not only the end of the war in Indochina but also the beginning of hostilities in Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. In the latter country, the anti-French insurgency was represented mostly by the National Liberation Front (FLN) and its armed branch, the ALN. The rebels conducted guerrilla warfare and attacked, in groups up to company strength, the French representatives (both indigenous and European) and French military convoys, depots, and smaller posts. In addition, they raided pro-French indigenous communities and French-owned plants and farms, including killing the innocent civilians living or working there, as a warning. In response, the French authorities launched anti-insurgent policy and military operations across Algeria, although they had never officially declared war.
The 2e REP was assigned to the Intervention Parachute Group (GIP) under General Massu and soon joined the operations. In late December, its companies patrolled the Batna region located 100 miles (160 km) south of Philippeville, in the Aures-Nementchas mountains. This was a harsh and deprived region that had been heavily affected by the insurgency. Other companies operated between Praxbourg and Dem El Begrat, in the vicinity of their garrison city.
On January 5, 1956, the 2e REP experienced its first death: Sergeant Kuntz from the 1st Company was killed in the Djebel Fedjoudj (djebel means a mountain or mountain range), east of Batna. Twenty-two rebels were killed during the same engagement.
On January 16, six rebels were killed near Philippeville.
Between April 29 and 30, during Operation Fath, 28 rebels were killed near Douar Ouled Fatma, in the Batna region. Three legionnaires also died, including Sergeant Gregurek, well-known for his thick mustache.
Operations in the Aures-Nementchas continued until May.
In early June, the GIP split into two parts, including the 25th Parachute Division (25e DP) under General Sauvagnac. The 2e REP was assigned to it.
On June 5, the regiment received its regimental flag.
Six days later, two companies jumped over Tamentout, between Sétif and Djidjelli, in the mountainous and forested region called Petite Kabylie (Little Kabylia), west of Philippeville. They found and liquidated 19 rebels that day.
On June 22, there was another combat jump, this time over Oued Tamza in the Khenchela region (the Aures). During two days, the rebels lost 75 men.
However, combat jumps proved to be not so advantageous in this kind of warfare. Instead, helicopters became much more popular for transporting troops straight into the heart of the enemy area. The Piasecki H-21 “Banana” remains the iconic part of the Algerian War. Therefore, the two combat jumps in June 1956 were the first and also the last ones for the regiment during the war in Algeria.
Throughout the second half of the year, operations intensified. The 2e REP legionnaires were engaged in the Aures mountains, the Hodna mountains (between the Aures and the Petite Kabylie), and the Collo peninsula, west of Philippeville.
In November, the entire 2e REP left the garrison and deployed about 125 miles (200 km) southeast, to Tebessa, the center of a sector bordering Tunisia. The operations focused on the ALN rebels and their supply trains, which regularly crossed the border to their camps in the neighboring country whose leader was sympathetic to them (in fact, once a French colony, Tunisia gained independence only a few months earlier). Several significant clashes occurred there. On November 28-29, 18 rebels were eliminated. On December 18, an important rebel group of 28 men under Cherif Mahmoud was destroyed during fierce combat in the Djebel Mezeraa. However, the regiment suffered heavy casualties, too. It lost its very first officer in action, Lieutenant Jean Mounier. Along with him were killed 15 legionnaires and another 20 were wounded. Finally, in the Djebel Anoual, 33 rebels were eliminated on December 22.
In 13 months of operations in Algeria, the 2e REP lost an officer and 37 legionnaires, while more than 80 men were wounded. As for the enemy, up to 900 rebels were killed or wounded and about 500 imprisoned by the regiment in the same period.
2e REP: Algerian War in 1957 and 1958
Until early April 1957, the 2e REP had remained in the Tebessa sector and conducted operations there. The legionnaires also patrolled the Souk Ahras sector, located north of Tebessa. They were engaged numerous times, including in the Djebel Bou Gaffer on February 12, when the enemy had 40 men killed. However, the regiment lost Lieutenant Jean Mennesson. Other important combats occurred near Guentis on March 1-2, with 75 rebels dead or wounded, and in the Djebel Es Sif on March 6, with a record of 42 dead rebels. At Aghour El Kifene on March 29, the regiment killed 38 rebels, while it lost Lieutenants Claude Brehier and Raymond Lalet.
On April 7, the entire 2e REP rejoined Philippeville to rest.
From May to July, the unit operated in the El Milia region, about 30 miles (50 km) west of Philippeville, and also patrolled the Collo peninsula. The legionnaires returned to their garrison in August.
In the meantime, the ER squadron was redesignated and became the Motorized Company (CP), still equipped with Jeeps.
On August 18, the 2e REP men redeployed to Tebessa, where they would remain for the rest of the year. Three days later, they eliminated 35 rebels during an operation carried out alongside their comrades from the 6th Motorized Company, 4e REI.
Other important engagements in the Tebessa sector achieved the following results: 21 rebels were imprisoned close to Bir El Ater on September 7; 26 rebels were killed in the Djebel Rhifouf on October 29; at Ed Daroua on November 4, the enemy lost 27 men, and another 23 rebels were killed in the Djebel Djebria on November 25. The most significant action took place in the Djebel Bou Djellal on December 6, when the enemy suffered the deaths of 106 men. Finally, two important operations occurred on December 9 and 18: The regiment eliminated 69 rebels in the Djebel Fedjoudj and 61 rebels in the Djebel El Hamimat Guerra, respectively.
All in all, 362 rebels were killed and 26 captured in the Tebessa sector during the second half of 1957. However, the 2e REP also suffered losses that year. It lost three officers and 17 legionnaires, while two officers and 42 legionnaires were wounded.
On December 22, the men rejoined Philippeville and changed their base. The entire regiment was now stationed at Camp Pehau.
Throughout January and February, the 2e REP legionnaires operated in the El Milia region, alongside their comrades from the 3e REI.
In early February, Colonel de Vismes left the regiment. Major Masselot temporarily took command.
Later that month, on the 25th, 29 rebels were killed at Draa Tameroun, southeast of El Milia.
Until April, operations continued around El Milia, as well as in the Philippeville and Djidjelli regions. Between March 15 and 17, the enemy suffered 48 men killed in the Arb Estahia forest, southwest of Philippeville.
In early April, Colonel Jacques Lefort was appointed as a new commanding officer of the 2e REP. Major Masselot continued as second-in-command.
A significant result was achieved during Operation Romeo 50 on April 25-26, when 199 rebels were killed at Beni Sbih, southeast of El Milia.
On May 1, the alerted regiment redeployed to the Souk Ahras region, some 75 miles (120 km) southeast of Philippeville. There, in the Djebel Mouadjene, it destroyed a group of 54 rebels who had illegally crossed the Algeria-Tunisia border.
On May 13, a putsch took place in Algiers, the capital, organized by high-ranking generals, including Generals Salan and Massu. The putsch supported General de Gaulle, once a leader of Free France during World War II, who had promised to save French Algeria and defeat the FLN/ALN. The putschists demanded that the French government in Paris approve de Gaulle as the leader of France. On May 24, pro-putschist French paratroopers seized France’s Corsica. A plan to seize Paris was eventually abandoned; the government backed down and agreed to support General de Gaulle’s return to power.
In June, Major Masselot left the 2e REP. A former head of the 2e BEP, he was replaced as the regiment’s second-in-command by Major Robert Caillaud, the original commander of the 1st Company, 2e BEP in 1948.
From June to December, the 2e REP was stationed in the Guelma region, about 45 miles (70 km) southeast of Philippeville. A sad event happened there on July 13. While searching a rebel-occupied cave between Ras El Mdouda and Ain Damous, south of Guelma, Lieutenant Jean Gastaud and seven legionnaires were exposed to toxic gas and died. Meanwhile, that same week, the enemy lost 25 men in the sector.
In mid-September, 42 rebels were eliminated in the Djebel Mahouna, south of Guelma.
In December, the 2e REP returned to Philippeville after having spent late October in the Aures Mountains and part of November in the El Milia region, conducting operations there.
2e REP: Algerian War in 1959 and 1960
From January to April, operations continued in the well-known regions of the Constantine Department: Philippeville, Souk Ahras, and El Milia.
In early February, Major Pierre Darmuzai, a former commander of both the 1er BEP and the 3e BEP/3e REP, became the new second-in-command of the regiment.
On March 1-2, an important operation occurred at Ouillen, southeast of Souk Ahras. The enemy lost 47 men, but Captain Pierre Bourgin – a popular officer, a poet, and the Motorized Company’s (ex-Squadron) commander – was also killed.
In May, the 2e REP men returned to Guelma to conduct operations there. In June, they moved to the sector of Bône (now Annaba), some 40 miles (65 km) east of Philippeville, close to the Tunisian border. There, on June 24, the Battle of Sidi Salem took place; 29 rebels and six legionnaires lost their lives. Another 18 rebels were imprisoned.
In the summer, the regiment remained at the border and was involved in the so-called Mission Herse Mobile. The men were tasked with patrolling a given section of the electric fence border with Tunisia and being ready for an alert day and night. As compensation for the mission, they received a short time of rest in Philippeville.
The same year, the new commander-in-chief in Algeria, Morice Challe, launched a successful strategy called Challe Plan. This meant chasing, fixing, and destroying the enemy (both its armed and political wings) in one particular military sector by all available operational units that – after completely clearing it – moved to another sector to repeat the task.
Thus, in September, the Challe Plan came to the Constantine Department with Operation Pierres Precieuses (September 1959 – April 1960), which was a series of smaller, offensive operations. The 2e REP actively participated. The first phase of Pierres Precieuses – called Operation Rubis – took place in the Bougie region (now Bejaia), west of Philippeville. The second phase, Operation Saphir, took place in the Djidjelli region in late October. The third phase, Operation Turquoise, followed in the El Milia region in early November. In the latter operation, the regiment fought alongside its sister unit, the 1er REP, also created in 1955. Second Lieutenant Orlando Iezzi – who started his career as a simple legionnaire – was killed.
By early 1960, many rebel sectors in Algeria had been pacified, with their leaders asking for peace negotiations. The only sector still revolting was that of the Aures-Nementchas, where military operations continued throughout the year.
In March, the regiment took part in several smaller operations there: Operation Basalte, Operation Porphyre, and Operation Topaz, the last phase of Pierres Precieuses.
On March 31, Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Darmuzai, until now second-in-command, was appointed as a new commanding officer of the 2e REP.
In April, on the 19th, during combat in the Forest of Beni Salah in the Djidjelli region, the Combat Support Company lost its commander, Captain Jean Planet. With Captain Bourgin, they remain the regiment’s only company commanders killed in action, until nowadays (2023).
In July, the 2e REP moved to the southern part of the Constantine Department and operated mainly in the Khenchela and Batna regions.
On August 14, back in the El Milia region, a dozen rebels were liquidated and another 27 captured in the Forest of Ouled Ali, during Operation Alexandrine.
A large military maneuver – Operation Ariege – occurred near Khenchela, in the Aures mountains, in September. The regiment was involved, alongside the legionnaires from the 3e REI and 5e REI; the rebels lost 95 men.
On December 2, a dozen 2e REP legionnaires were killed in the Djebel Chelia in the same sector, during a fierce battle that was part of Operation Alex.
Later that month, the regiment deployed across Algeria to the Tlemcen region in the northwestern part of the country. There, they guarded the Algeria-Morocco border and prevented enemy crossings.
2e REP: Algerian War in 1961 and 1962
In early January 1961, a French referendum was held on the matter of Algeria’s self-determination, as ordered by French President de Gaulle. Unlike in the September 1958 referendum in Algeria, in which the vast majority of local Muslims and French settlers voted to remain part of France, the new published results stated that 70% of voters wanted independence. Within the Army, including the Legion, the organization of such a referendum was seen as a provocation, not only because of the promises de Gaulle made in 1958 but also because of the disregard for the hard and successful work in the terrain, which had resulted in the near-defeat of the enemy. Nevertheless, secret negotiations between Paris and rebels had already taken place.
The regiment left the Moroccan border in late January and returned to Philippeville.
In March, operations continued near Khenchela in the Aures mountains. The 2e REP took part in the large Operation Dordogne, which cost the lives of 152 rebels, including 33 that the regiment eliminated on March 16 during the Battle of Djebel Ahmar Khaddou, between Khenchela and Biskra.
In April, operations were carried out in the Collo and Batna regions. Six legionnaires died in a helicopter crash on April 6, during an operation in the Djebel Groun, southwest of Batna.
Generals’ Putsch in Algiers. On April 22, a coup d’état took place in the capital of Algeria. It was organized by four retired French high-ranking generals, including Generals Salan and Challe. These were almost the same figures who had helped General de Gaulle gain power in May 1958, via a similar putsch in Algiers. Now, because of his acceptance of Algeria’s independence in secret talks, they saw de Gaulle as a betrayer of France, French settlers in Algeria, and the French soldiers who had fallen during the Algerian War. Many in the military believed the rebels could have been fully defeated if the political will existed to do so.
The 2e REP took an active part in the Putsch, alongside the 1er REP and the 1er REC. It was led by then-deputy commander Major Bernard Cabiro, one of the young officers of the original 2e BEP. (Lieutenant Colonel Darmuzai refused to support the putschists.) The regiment moved to Algiers and, on the 24th, it helped restore order at the airport. However, the putsch failed the next day, and the men had to return to Philippeville.
On April 30, the 2e REP’s 25th Parachute Division was dissolved – a punishment for the division’s active participation in the putsch. Within the Legion, only the 1er REP was exemplarily punished and disbanded; the 2e REP and the 1er REC were spared. Major Cabiro was sentenced to two years of probation; the other three 2e REP officers were sentenced to one year of probation. All four were sent outside the regiment and the Legion.
As of early May, the 2e REP remained the Legion’s only airborne unit. It was assigned to the newly created 3rd Intervention Brigade of the Army Corps, Constantine Department.
At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Chenel – a distinguished, respected officer – took command of the regiment to replace Lieutenant Colonel Darmuzai, who had left the Legion. Interestingly, Chenel commanded the very first Legion unit to officially participate in paratrooper training. In China, in late 1945, the young lieutenant and his platoon of volunteers from the original 5e REI were trained to face the Japanese. However, because of the end of World War II, they never made a jump and, therefore, didn’t get the parachutist badge. Chenel had to complete his course 16 years later, in 1961.
Until December, the 2e REP carried out operations with small clashes, mainly in the Petite Kabylie and northeast of it, in the Collo peninsula. There, three significant encounters occurred: Twenty rebels were killed at Kef Sidi Marouf on October 5, another 12 rebels were killed at Beni Sbih on October 13, and 11 rebels were killed in the same area five days later.
In November, the unit operated closer to the Tunisian border. During a rebel mortar fire attack in the Djebel Addeda, east of Bône, on November 22, Lieutenant Erwin Bergot and seven legionnaires from the Motorized Company were wounded. The officer was a former platoon leader with the 1re CEPML (Legion Heavy Mortar Parachute Company) at Dien Bien Phu and later became a well-known writer.
In late December, two clashes occurred, taking the lives of 36 rebels.
From early January 1962, the regiment operated in the Collo peninsula and the Djidjelli region, as well as at the plains of La Calle and Morris, east of Bône. Encounters became rare. Until March, only 11 rebels were eliminated. The reason was the ongoing talks between the French government and FLN leaders.
On March 15, the 2e REP left Philippeville, where the unit had been stationed since its activation in December 1955. Three days later, it was installed at Telergma, a small town about 63 miles (100 km) southwest of the original garrison. The town had an important military airfield – Telergma Airfield – that the U.S. Air Force had used during World War II.
The next day, after the installation at Telergma, an official ceasefire came into force, following the Évian Accords treaty (signed on March 18). The Algerian War was over.
During the conflict in Algeria, the 2e REP lost 233 officers, NCOs, and legionnaires, while the regiment killed over 3,650 rebels.
2e REP: Algeria from 1962 to 1967
After the March ceasefire, operations on a much smaller scale continued in the Collo peninsula and the Bône region, comprising mainly regular patrols.
In early July, Algeria gained its independence. Again, many in the military and Algeria saw this as an incomprehensible betrayal, on the part of the French leadership, of the fighting and fallen soldiers, as well as the European settlers and the large number of pro-French Muslims in that North African country who, for years, had been intimidated, attacked, and even killed by rebels. Within months, about 800,000 of the so-called Pieds-Noirs (Black feet, people of French and other European descent living in Algeria for decades) emigrated to metropolitan France; another 100,000 left Algeria before 1965. As for the loyal Muslims, it is estimated that, in the months following independence, the ALN killed at least 30,000 and possibly as many as 150,000, as General de Gaulle categorically refused to provide them with refuge in France.
After nearly six months spent at Telergma, the regiment left the Constantine Department. It moved across Algeria and, as of mid-September, it was officially stationed at Bou Sfer, a small village near the large joint military base of Mers El Kebir. This famous, strategically important air and naval base was located next to Oran, a well-known port city in northwestern Algeria. The March 1962 Évian Accords allowed France to maintain the base for 15 years.
At a deserted, rocky plain near Bou Sfer, the 2e REP had to establish a new camp: Camp Commandant Segrétain, named in honor of Major Pierre Segretain, the 1er BEP’s commander who was killed in Indochina in 1950. Built from scratch, the camp was finished in 10 months, in June of the following year.
At Bou Sfer, given the new political conditions, the regiment’s activities were limited to construction work, shooting exercises, paratrooper training, maneuvers, and sports activities. Also, one by one, platoons were sent to the airborne base in Blida – about 230 miles (370 km) to the east – for a week-long advanced paratrooper course.
In late May 1963, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Caillaud, second-in-command from 1958 to 1959, succeeded Colonel Chenel as commanding officer of the regiment. For the record, Caillaud was there at the birth of the unit. In fact, it was he who led the first elements of a newly organized 2e BEP in Sétif in October 1948, representing the absent Major Burgière (who, on paper, was the very first commander of the unit).
To have such a personality at the head of the regiment in those sad times meant much for his subordinates. The new commander didn’t waste a minute. In July, under his leadership, the 2e REP began its large, complete transformation, which would take into account the needs for future challenges and conflicts. The regiment was to become a modern rapid reaction force ready to intervene anywhere in the world within hours.
To meet that goal, each combat company received its future specialization: night and urban warfare for the 1st, mountain warfare for the 2nd, and amphibious warfare for the 3rd, while the 4th was to maintain snipers and sabotage and destruction specialists. As for the Combat Support Company, it would comprise, among others, a group of well-trained commandos controlling jumps from high altitudes, as well as anti-tank elements.
Therefore, several advanced military courses for special forces were launched, including mountain warfare or guerilla warfare courses, close combat courses, CRAC and ENTAC anti-tank courses, sniper and combat diver courses, explosive and demolition courses, a survival course, and a high-altitude freefall parachute course.
See nice photos from that time: Training at Bou Sfer in 1963.
To become a fully self-sufficient regiment, unlike the rest of the French Army airborne units, the 2e REP sent a detachment under Staff Sergeant Grany to Blida to take a course on how to pack and maintain parachutes. Thanks to this, a new Maintenance & Packing of Parachutes Platoon (SEPP) could be formed within the 2e REP – a particularity that still exists today.
On top of that, jump instructors and jumpmasters were trained for the needs of the regiment, to be able to train 2e REP ordinary paratroopers on the ground and drop them from aircraft. Again, this is unlike the other French airborne units, whose personnel are trained at Pau in Southern France.
The transformation of the regiment and all the associated courses ran continuously until 1966.
Meanwhile, in December 1963, a 2e REP detachment moved to Corsica, a French island in the Mediterranean Sea, southeast of France. There, it had to achieve two main tasks: establish the regiment’s own parachute training center and arrange its future base.
It should be noted that Corsica wasn’t chosen by chance. In mid-1962, following the end of the Algerian War, training units of the Foreign Legion were headquartered there. This was part of the ongoing transfer of the Legion from its original homeland of Algeria to Corsica and the south of France.
In February 1964, the 2e REP’s Parachute Training Center (CES) under Major de Biré was activated in Corsica to train fresh legionnaires assigned to the regiment. This was the first step toward its future self-sufficiency. The center was located in an abandoned military camp near the town of Calvi, in the northwestern part of the island. Due to its proximity to the beach, it greatly resembled the former Camp Pehau in Philippeville.
To help arrange the camp – called Camp Fiume Secco at the time – and transform it into their future base, entire companies were deployed to Corsica and rotated every three months. In 1964, they were assisted by their comrades from the 1st Company, 3rd Foreign Legion Task Force (3e BMLE), a military engineering and construction unit.
Besides these tasks, the legionnaires trained in Corsica’s high mountains, including skiing. Their presence helped maintain order in this sometimes troubled and separatist region.
Following the dissolution of the Legion’s 4e REI in late April 1964, the 2e REP received its music band, the first in its history. The musicians alternated between their instruments and the mortar guns of the HQ Company. The same year, the 1er REC was also stationed at Bou Sfer, but at another camp. However, both regiments commemorated all Camerone Day events together.
While the entire regiment was very busy with the transformation process, training courses, and work duties in Corsica, its team managed to win France’s 1964 Military Pentathlon Championship, the main sports competition within the French Army at the time.
The next year, the 2e REP men were involved in their first international joint military exercise, Fair Game, which took place alongside U.S. Marines in Corsica.
Shortly afterward, in June 1965, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Arnaud de Foïard replaced Colonel Caillaud and took command of the regiment.
In late December of the same year, the Motorized Company (CP) under Captain Commerçon was disbanded.
Finally, in mid-1967, the entire 2e REP left Algeria’s Bou Sfer to make room for the 2e REI and was installed, between late May and late June, at Camp Fiume Secco near Calvi, Corsica. A new chapter had begun.
2e REP: Interventions during the Cold War 1967 – 1989
Shortly after the 2e REP’s installation in Corsica, Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud de Foïard left the command and was replaced by Lieutenant Colonel Jeannou Lacaze. Under the latter’s leadership, the regiment resumed common activities. The legionnaires performed parachute training, tactical and shooting exercises, sports, close-combat training, and mountain and amphibious warfare and sabotage instruction. In addition, they participated in combined-arms military maneuvers. The goal for the 2e REP was to remain a particularly well-qualified unit able to fulfill its missions.
Their success was proved by the fact that, in early July 1967, the 2e REP became the first unit to provide a high-altitude freefall commando group within the 11th Intervention Division (11e DI), to which the 2e REP was assigned.
In late 1967, a new war memorial – a copy of the one that had existed within the 3e BEP’s barracks in Sétif in the 1950s – was unveiled within the camp on Saint Michael Day (September 29), the regiment’s holiday commemorating the patron of paratroopers. On 1968 Camerone Day (April 30), the holiday of the Legion commemorating the legendary 1863 battle in Mexico, the camp itself was renamed Camp Raffalli in honor of the popular 2e BEP commander killed in Indochina.
For the record, Caserne Sampiero, an old barracks in the town of Calvi, was renovated by legionnaires to serve the regiment, especially the officers.
Meanwhile, in mid-January 1968, in view of the Winter Olympic Games in France’s Grenoble, the regiment was honored with the mission of carrying the Olympic flame. The torch was entrusted to Staff Sergeant Hediger, a legendary sports master. This was also seen as a reward for the regiment being ranked the best sports unit within the French Army in 1967.
A few weeks later, in February, the 2nd Company 2e REP under Captain Latournerie returned to Africa and took part in the week-long bilateral Exercise Damergou in Niger, once a French colony in West Africa. Local newspapers spoke well of the 2e REP legionnaires, calling them the best element of the exercise. It was the regiment’s first engagement beyond the boundaries of Algeria and Corsica.
The next month, the 2e REP men visited metropolitan France for the first time and participated in Exercise Kiwi. It was also the first time a Foreign Legion regiment as a whole took part in a military maneuver in France.
In mid-December, the 3rd Company and an anti-tank platoon of the CAE (ex-CA; Recon & Combat Support Company since January 1966, future CEA) had the privilege of returning to Algeria’s Bou Sfer. The detachment remained there until mid-April 1970, tasked with ensuring the security of the military base, which still belonged to the French back then. Although it was of a different nature, this four-month overseas deployment foreshadowed the regimental activities in the coming decades.
It is worth remembering that at the time, the Foreign Legion was the only fully professional, non-conscript force within the French Army. And yet the 2e REP was practically the only Legion regiment that could quickly intervene outside France, as a whole, due to the vast reorganization that affected the Legion between 1962 and 1968.
This was confirmed in mid-April 1969 when the 2e REP’s 1st and 2nd Companies deployed to Chad in Central Africa to carry out the first combat action involving legionnaires since 1962, in what would later be known as Operation Limousin. A former French colony, the country was experiencing a civil war that had erupted in 1965. The 2e REP men were to help the Chadian government regain control over the affected territories, facing rebel factions from the National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT). In five months, tens of rebels were eliminated, including 68 liquidated during combat in Massaloua. In mid-September, the already deployed 2e REP elements were reinforced by the regiment’s 3rd Company, followed by the colonel, HQ, the HQ Company, and the CAE in late October. Only the 4th Company remained in Corsica.
In addition, also in late October, the 2e REP in Chad was reinforced by a freshly established intervention unit of the Legion, the Motorized Company (CMLE) 1er RE. The CMLE integrated one of the two EMT task forces of the regiment.
The next month, on November 13, 1969, Legionnaire Maxime Depuis from the 2e REP became the first member of the Legion killed in action since 1962.
During the rainy season, which hindered the movement of vehicles, part of the 2nd Company formed a Mounted Platoon, comprising Lieutenant Pietri and about forty legionnaires mounted on horseback. This particular cavalry unit within airborne troops had proven to be very effective due to its mobility, and it inflicted many deadly strikes on the enemy, notably in February 1970.
Two months later, in April, after having spent a year in Chad, the 1st and 2nd Companies returned to Corsica. The units had pacified their assigned sectors and liquidated many rebels. However, they had also suffered casualties: Medic-Captain Michel de Larre de la Dorie and three legionnaires were killed, while a dozen men were wounded.
In early July, it was the 3rd Company’s turn to leave Chad. By late December 1970, the rest of the regiment and the CMLE were back in Corsica. Since April, the Legion’s remaining detachment had eliminated over 100 rebels. It lost three legionnaires, over 20 legionnaires were wounded.
In the meantime, in August, Lieutenant Colonel Dupoux succeeded now-Colonel Lacaze. The latter had commanded the regiment for the exceptional length of three years, while all the other commanding officers, from 1955 to present (2023), have maintained the usual two-year term.
For the next three years, the 2e REP, now part of the 11th Parachute Division (11e DP, the ex-11e DI since April 1971), lived a much less interesting life in the barracks, diversified by training, military maneuvers, and courses of various kinds, including those in the amphibious center built on the beach not far from the camp or in the Corsican mountains, where the Legion managed a mountainside holiday home, Chalet du Vergio. (In 1983, the 2e REP was the only Legion unit in Corsica and thus took over the chalet.) The regiment also continued performing its duties as an intervention unit in Corsica, including fighting large forest fires.
In 1974, the Army Command decided to extend the system of “rotational” companies (practiced at Bou Sfer in 1969-1970, for example) by assigning them to one of the French units stationed overseas, to increase their strength and capability. This system gave elite troops from metropolitan France the opportunity to live in isolation far from the old continent for a few months and maintain their operational readiness by serving in inhospitable, less developed places. Simultaneously, the new system allowed them to avoid waiting years for a possible overseas deployment.
Initially, each formation of France’s Intervention Force was to send its companies to the same territory. The 2e REP thus was assigned the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas (TFAI, now Djibouti), in the Horn of Africa. After a short and little-known deployment to the TFAI by a 2e REP detachment in late 1973, one of its companies (the 3rd) reinforced the 13e DBLE there in October 1974 and became the Legion’s first rotational unit (compagnie tournante). After a six-month stay, it was relieved by another company of the regiment and returned to Corsica.
In the TFAI/Djibouti, the rotational companies were to keep order, maintain the French presence, and guard the Djiboutian border with Ethiopia. The “REPmen” (the official, English-based nickname for the 2e REP members) were also trained in desert warfare.
The new system proved its usefulness a year and a half later, in early February 1976, when a school bus was kidnapped in the TFAI, by local militants supported by the Somali government. The 2nd Company 2e REP legionnaires – who were deployed there at the time – were alerted and helped save thirty of French children held hostage at Loyada.
In the meantime, in Corsica, the men were training and taking part in exercises, often alongside the French Navy or their comrades from the GOLE (the second intervention unit of the Legion, built around the ex-CMLE in 1971), and even bilateral ones, such as “Iberia” with Spanish paratroopers. Also, the companies regularly traveled to the continent for several weeks to train in French military maneuver areas, like at Camp Canjuers and Camp Larzac, both (re-)built with the help of legionnaires from the 61e BMGL.
In May 1977, the long-awaited Hall of Honor of the regiment was officially completed and opened. However, the same year was also marked by a tragedy. Lieutenant Gautier from the 2nd Company died and six of his legionnaires were seriously wounded in a road accident in early September when their truck crashed while they were returning from an exercise.
Two months later, the same company was sent to French Guiana, an overseas department of France located in South America, for a ten-day exercise in the jungle with their comrades from the 3e REI, who had been stationed there since 1973. From the late 1980s, the 2e REP men would return to Guiana from time to time, within the frame of regular four-month deployments.
The year 1978 offered the 2e REP – now under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Philippe Erulin – the possibility of seeing combat again. In early March, over 20 elements (mainly officers and NCOs) returned to Chad as part of Operation Tacaud 4. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Lhopitallier, second-in-command, they were to instruct the Chadian army, still facing the FROLINAT rebels who were now heavily supported by Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya. Despite their mission, the detachment saw several heavy fights in Barangue, Ati, and Djedaa of the Batha region (center of the country) in May, when about 160 rebels were eliminated.
The same month also saw what was probably the most famous action the regiment ever carried out: the Battle of Kolwezi. Its task was to jump over the town of Kolwezi in what was then Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Central Africa, and rescue over 2,000 European hostages whom local left-wing rebels had captured. Because of the successful operation and its international media coverage, the 2e REP gained popularity around the world. It also earned its 7th citation.
It would not be far from the truth to state that at that time, the fully professional and well-trained 2e REP proved itself to be the most action-ready military unit of its size in the world, capable of quickly intervening anywhere and anytime.
In mid-1978, new elements appeared within the reorganized CEA company (the ex-CAE). The first was the SADAA anti-aircraft platoon, equipped with 20 mm guns. The second were two MILAN anti-tank system platoons (which had replaced the ENTAC missiles), and the third was the SML heavy mortar platoon, equipped with 120 mm mortars. The latter platoon subsequently deployed to Chad, from March to August 1979.
Meanwhile, some of the volunteers enlisted in the Legion had to be sent to Camp Raffalli to undergo their basic training there, under 2e REP cadres, because of a lack of capacity in the new barracks of the Legion training regiment in France’s Castelnaudary. This tricky situation lasted until the early 1980s.
In the late 1970s, the regiment was also among the first to receive the new French assault rifle, FAMAS.
With the onset of the 1980s, the scope of the regiment began to expand. While the 4th Company didn’t participate in the 1969-1970 operations in Chad, and first appeared in Djibouti only in late 1976, it was honored as being the first unit of the Legion to deploy to the Central African Republic (CAR), another part of the former French Empire. This happened in late April 1980, and the deployment lasted until September. The French government sought good bilateral cooperation with the CAR’s new leadership, and thus the company’s tasks were to show a constant French military presence, maintain contact with the local population, provide it with medical assistance, and carry out construction work in support of both civil and military infrastructure (e.g., building and repairing roads, bridges, and military installations). Until the 2010s, the 2e REP and other Legion regiments took turns occasionally sending rotational units for four-month deployments to the CAR.
However, the new decade also brought great sadness. In early 1982, a platoon from the aforementioned 4th Company perished during the Mont Garbi aircraft accident; Captain Philipponnat and 26 legionnaires, as well as two men from the 13e DBLE, were killed. For the Foreign Legion, even nowadays, the sad accident remains the most tragic day since the end of the First Indochina War (1954).
The same year saw a new theater of operations for the post-Algeria Legion: the Middle East, specifically Lebanon, where legionnaires – including the famous 6e REI – had served between the 1920s and the 1940s. The 2e REP was sent there as part of a multinational peacekeeping force, in what is called Operation Epaulard in France. It was the first mission of its kind for the Legion, and it didn’t fit the legionnaires well. Forming part of the initial vanguard, the 2e REP’s CRAP (In-depth Reconnaissance and Action Commandos, their title adopted that year, in 1982) and the 1st and 3rd Companies had to help the Lebanese forces evacuate, from Beirut (the capital), the foreign combatants involved in Lebanon’s civil war. The 2e REP men remained in Lebanon for only four weeks.
In 1983, the entire 2e REP once again returned to Chad, as part of Operation Manta. Under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bernard Janvier, the men operated there alongside the 1er REC and the 2e REI from November to May 1984. Later that year, the French troops withdrew, following an agreement with Libya.
The French returned to Chad in early 1986; Operation Epervier began. It was to contain the new invasion of Libya that was threatening the capital. In May, the 3rd Company arrived in the country. It was replaced two months later by the 4th, stationed in the CAR at the time. The entire 2e REP (1,006 men participated), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Jean Wabinski, deployed to Chad in May 1987 for four months. After that, companies regularly rotated in Chad, carrying out a four-month deployment. Operation Epervier, which since the 1990s had been reduced to providing logistical support to the Chadian army, lasted until 2014.
The active decade of the 1980s ended with significant geopolitical events, especially the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War was over. However, the new era would bring new conflicts.
2e REP from 1990 to 2001: Africa and the Balkans
The collapse of the Eastern Bloc and the end of the Cold War meant two major things for the Legion. The first was a flood of recruits from Eastern Europe that would fundamentally change the composition of the Legion for the next three decades. The second was an unprecedented increase in conflicts around the world in which the Legion should have been involved not just as a participant but mostly as a mediator or a member of peacekeeping forces, like other armies of the Western world at the time.
The only exception in the 1990s was the Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm, or Operation Daguet in France), in which the Legion participated with massive combat deployments alongside its American allies. The 2e REP, however, sent only its CRAP commandos. They arrived in the Middle East in late January 1991 and captured the Iraqi military base at As-Salman (Operation Princesse) a month later when the general assault was launched.
In May 1990, the 2nd Company 2e REP was sent to Gabon, a country on the Atlantic coast of Central Africa and another former French colony. Following violent demonstrations and strikes across the country, the unit had to evacuate about 2,000 French nationals living there (Operation Requin). It left Gabon in July. However, the 2e REP units returned from time to time.
In October, an intention to transform Central-East African Rwanda’s one-party state into a multi-party democracy led to significant violence between the country’s main ethnic groups, the Hutu and the Tutsi. France immediately responded by sending the 2e REP’s CRAP and 4th Company from the Central African Republic (where they were on their usual four-month rotational mission) to Rwanda, to evacuate about 700 European nationals (Operation Noroit).
Between late November and early December, following new rebel activities, Colonel Rémy Gausseres, his HQ, and three companies of the 2e REP (2nd, 3rd, 4th) deployed to Chad to reinforce French troops of Operation Epervier. They had to protect and evacuate some 1,600 Europeans and, at the same time, supervise the calm return of Libyan prisoners to Libya (militants who had once supported the Chadian rebels and been imprisoned in 1987). The deployment lasted only a month.
Nevertheless, the 2nd Company returned to Chad in early February 1991, alongside the HQ and 1st Companies, as part of Operation Epervier.
In March, the 4th Company (at the end of its stay in Djibouti at the time) redeployed to Rwanda, to maintain order in Kigali, the capital.
In November, it was the 3rd Company’s turn to deploy to Rwanda (until March 1992), still as part of Operation Noroit, to protect and evacuate French and other European nationals.
In 1991, Djibouti (independent since 1977) in the Horn of Africa experienced a civil war between the government and a predominantly Afar rebel group (FRUD). At the time, the French were still present in Djibouti and the 2e REP companies rotated there every four months to reinforce the Legion’s 13e DBLE stationed in Djibouti City. Thus, in 1992, France launched Operation Iskoutir: Both Legion units assisted the Djiboutian army and maintained order in the borderlands, thereby preventing neighboring countries from sending support to the rebels. The operation continued until 1999.
In December 1992, the 3rd Company deployed to Somalia, a country torn by armed faction violence and, coincidentally, a neighbor of Djibouti. The company was integrated into the U.S. Marine Corps UNITAF task force that had received United Nations support to use “all necessary means to establish as soon as possible a secure environment for humanitarian relief operations in Somalia” (Operation Restore Hope, or Operation Oryx in France). The 2e REP men patrolled the capital of Mogadishu before joining a French task force that included units of the Legion’s 13e DBLE and the then 6e REG. The legionnaires left Somalia in April 1993.
In the meantime, also in December 1992, the first elements of the 2e REP arrived in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was a newly constituted state in the heart of the Balkans in southeastern Europe, a former part of Yugoslavia. Immediately, conflict broke out between the Muslim Bosniaks, Orthodox Serbs, and Catholic Croats who inhabited the country. The latter two ethnic groups created self-proclaimed statelets, which led to the Bosnian War and the siege of Sarajevo. By January 1993, the 2e REP’s Colonel Michel Poulet, his HQ, and the HQ, 1st, and 4th Companies had been installed there as part of the UNPROFOR peacekeeping forces (FORPRONU in France). The “REPmen” were to protect the Sarajevo airport and provide the distribution of humanitarian aid within the city and its adjacent sectors, as well as escort military and civil authorities. It marked the first time the 2e REP got in touch with the VAB vehicles and the first time it had to change its green beret for the blue one (and the blue helmet) of the UN forces.
A few weeks after their arrival, on February 11, after having transported a woman in labor, Legionnaire Benko was killed by a mortar attack (the first combat loss for the 2e REP since the 1978 Kolwezi battle), while Legionnaire Nowakowski lost his leg. The latter’s case prompted French senators, in 1999, to propose the Français par le sang versé (French by blood spilt) law, which would provide French citizenship to every legionnaire seriously wounded during an operation, regardless of the length of service. The 2e REP also forced the international authorities to allow them to use return fire when under attack. (The UN forces were prohibited from using weapons.) The delicate and painful mission that frustrated many legionnaires was over in July.
In June 1994, the Legion returned to Rwanda following the brutal genocide that occurred between April and June during the Rwandan Civil War. There, France launched Operation Turquoise: The legionnaires from the 2e REI, 13e DBLE, and 6e REG and the 2e REP’s CRAP were to establish and secure a peace zone where tens of thousands of Tutsi refugees could find safety. The men left the country in August.
On August 1, the Maintenance Company was created within the 2e REP to maintain and repair the regiment’s equipment and vehicles.
The year 1995 saw the majority of the 2e REP, now under Colonel Bruno Dary, in the Central African Republic (colonel, HQ, 1st, and 2nd Companies, the latter replacing the 3rd Company) while the 4th Company was partly in Chad and partly in Gabon. Once back from the CAR, the 1st Company deployed to Gabon. In July, on Bastille Day, the regiment’s detachment participated in the military parade in Paris.
In November, the entire 2e REP (less the 1st Company) returned to Bosnia and Herzegovina in the former Yugoslavia for a NATO-led multinational peace enforcement mission: Implementation Force (IFOR), also known as Operation Joint Endeavour, or Operation Salamandre in France. Stationed mainly between Mostar and Mont Igman (venue of the 1984 Olympic Games), and reinforced with 1er REC men, they maintained the task of ensuring the implementation of peace accords signed between Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats. More than 1,000 para-legionnaires no longer wore the blue beret or helmet and were allowed to use their firearms. A 2e REP legionnaire died in an accident during the deployment. The regiment was back in Corsica in April 1996.
That same month, on Camerone Day, a life-sized model of an aircraft was unveiled for purposes of the PROMO platoon, which was tasked with providing basic parachute instruction for newcomers. The model’s interior was from the Transall C160 military aircraft that had crashed in Corsica a year earlier.
Meanwhile, in April and May 1996, the Central African Republic experienced two mutinies by several hundred soldiers which left over 50 dead and almost 280 wounded. France reacted by sending the 2e REI and 1er REC legionnaires to the country (Operation Almandin). A peace accord was signed. However, in November, a more serious third mutiny broke out, with the mutineers demanding the president’s resignation. Again, French soldiers were sent to ensure the safety of French nationals and foreigners in the country as part of Operation Almandin 2. The CRAP and the 4th Company of the 2e REP participated. On January 4, 1997, two French Marines members (a captain and a warrant officer) were killed by a rebel soldier with a burst from a submachine gun while they were negotiating in the capital (Bangui). In the following operation, the 4th Company and a Marines company attacked and captured rebel barracks, killed nine rebel soldiers, and imprisoned about twenty of them. The next day, the 3rd Company 2e REP arrived from Chad (where it participated in Operation Epervier). Except for a few clashes throughout January, no other action was needed, and the legionnaires eventually left the country.
In May 1997, the 2e REP’s Colonel Benoît Puga and his tactical HQ deployed to the Republic of Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), followed by the 1st Company and the CEA, both coming from their tour in Gabon. CRAP commandos were also present. This would be known as Operation Pelican. The units were tasked with evacuating French and foreign nationals and mainly Rwandan refugees from neighboring Zaire (where the 1978 Kolwezi battle had taken place), torn apart by a civil war to oust President Mobutu. A few days later, American, British, Belgian, and Portuguese allied forces arrived to reinforce the Pelican detachment but left soon afterward as the Zairian capital fell to opposition alliance forces without any major violence. The situation was relatively calm, and only the 2e REP units remained in place.
However, two weeks later, in the Republic of Congo itself, violence erupted in the capital of Brazzaville between militias representing three presidential candidates. For three days, from June 5 to 7, militiamen killed each other and devastated the Congolese capital, causing a high civilian death toll. Therefore, Operation Pelican 2 was launched to protect and evacuate French nationals through the engaging of the 2e REP units remaining in the city. On June 7, during the first evacuation mission, the 1st Company convoy, reinforced by a CRAP team, was fired upon by machine guns of a well-entrenched Cobra militia; a sergeant and a legionnaire were seriously wounded. Corporal Gobin, from the CRAP commandos, was killed while rescuing his seriously wounded comrade. The skirmish lasted an hour before the enemy was neutralized, with additional losses: an officer, a sergeant, and two legionnaires wounded. Nevertheless, the operation was successfully completed a week later, on June 15. About 6,000 foreign citizens, including some 1,500 French nationals, were evacuated through the Brazzaville Airport.
In 1998 and 1999, the CEA underwent a reorganization. The little-known SADAA anti-aircraft platoon was dissolved. In 1999, the CRAP was renamed GCP (Parachute Commando Group), while two anti-tank MILAN platoons merged into one. Two years later, the Heavy Mortar Platoon (SML) was deactivated and replaced by a sniper platoon (STE).
In July 1999, the 11e DP was reorganized and became the 11th Parachute Brigade (11e BP).
The same month, the 2e REP (the HQ, CEA, and 4th Company) deployed for the third and last time to Bosnia and Herzegovina, now as part of the Stabilisation Force (SFOR), a NATO-led multinational peacekeeping mission. They returned to Calvi in November.
From the late 1990s, the 2e REP units also participated in France’s Vigipirate plan, which focused on the surveillance and protection of facilities against the risk of terrorist bombing attacks (in large French cities, mainly Paris and Marseille) for a usual period of four weeks.
In early 2000, the HQ Company split and created an Instruction & Rear Company (CBI), which became the Administration & Service Support Company (CAS) three years later.
Early that same year, with the awaited dissolution of the 5th Foreign Regiment (5e RE, ex-5e REI) in French Polynesia, which was planned for mid-2000, the 3rd Company deployed for four months to New Caledonia, another overseas collectivity of France in the Pacific Ocean, close to Australia. Later, the 2e REP companies were occasionally deployed there. In recent years (2019-2023), they were deployed there on a regular basis.
Between April and June 2000, the 1st Company was sent to Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia following the 1998-1999 Kosovo War between Serbia and its separatist region. The deployment was part of the NATO-led peacekeeping Kosovo Force (KFOR), also known in France as Operation Trident. The company’s task was to monitor and guard the only bridge in the town of Mitrovica to prevent the Kosovo Albanian and Serbian ethnic groups from attacking each other. This rather police-like mission to pacify angry crowds without using violence was another new experience for legionnaires. In January 2001, the 2e REP – now commanded by Colonel Alain Bouquin – returned to Kosovo with its colonel, an HQ element, the 3rd and 4th Companies, and the GCP commandos. Now the men (and even women from the SEPP, French detached NCOs usually repairing parachutes, who also deployed) were tasked with maintaining order in the south of Mitrovica, operating street check points, and conducting reconnaissance and anti-traffic missions. They left the Balkans in May.
In mid-2001, a reserve company comprising several dozens of local non-Legion reservists was created and assigned to the regiment as its 6th Company.
2e REP from 2002 to 2012: Africa and Afghanistan
In late 2002, following an attempted coup d’état and growing rebel activities in West Africa’s Ivory Coast, France launched Operation Licorne to maintain order, as well as to protect French and European nationals and, if needed, evacuate them. In November, the CEA – in Djibouti at the time – was alerted and sent to Ivory Coast. On November 30, the legionnaires saw a combat action at the airport of Man, a town in the country’s west. A dozen FANCI rebels were killed and about 150 foreign nationals were evacuated. Two weeks later, the company was reinforced by the 2e REP’s tactical HQ and the 1st and 4th Companies. On January 6, 2003, Captain Dunant’s 1st Company was involved in two battles that took place near the town of Duékoué. That day, a dozen legionnaires were wounded, including one seriously, while about thirty rebels were neutralized. In April, after forcing the rebels to sign peace agreements, the men returned to Calvi.
On November 6, 2004, the Ivory Coast air force attacked a French military base in the country. Nine soldiers and an American civilian were killed, while 38 soldiers were wounded. The same day, the CEA and the 3rd Company – both deployed to Gabon at the time – were alerted and sent to Ivory Coast, still within Operation Licorne. They had to occupy and protect the airport in the capital. The 4th Company followed them the next day, coming from Corsica, along with Colonel Patrice Paulet, the 2e REP commanding officer at the time. In five days, about 5,000 French and foreign nationals were evacuated through the airport. In late November, given that the situation had stabilized, the two companies returned to Gabon; the 4th Company remained in Ivory Coast until March 2005.
The 2e REP returned to Ivory Coast in 2006, again with Colonel Paulet, his HQ, and the 1st and 3rd Companies. The situation was much calmer this time. The legionnaires maintained order, conducted patrols, and carried out construction work.
The same year, a GCP team operated in the Central African Republic, within Operation Boali. Another GCP team deployed to Chad in November, alongside the 1st Company, and remained there until December.
In 2007, the HQ and 2nd Companies and the CEA returned to Chad to take part in Operation Epervier. In the meantime, the 4th Company deployed to New Caledonia.
In 2008, while two 2e REP companies were in Gabon and another two were in French Guiana and New Caledonia, the GCP and some HQ men were the regiment’s first elements to join the War in Afghanistan. Senior Corporal Penon, a medic, was killed.
Led by their commanding officer, Colonel Éric Bellot des Minières, the 2e REP men returned to Afghanistan in 2010 with a tactical HQ, the HQ, 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Companies, the CEA, and the GCP. They were part of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), also known as Operation Pamir in France. Forming Task Force Altor, the 2e REP units stayed in Afghanistan for six months. During the mission, Sergeant Rygiel and 1st Class Legionnaire Hutnik were killed.
In 2011, the 4th Company was in Gabon and the Central African Republic (replaced in the latter country by the GCP later that year), while the 2nd Company redeployed to Afghanistan. It lost Corporal Thapa and 1st Class Legionnaire Jansen there.
As for the 3rd Company (which was, in 1974, the first rotational company of the 13e DBLE in Djibouti), it became the last such company of the Legion to reinforce the 13e DBLE before the latter left the Horn of Africa (mid-2011) and moved to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Between 2012 and 2016, the year of the 13e DBLE’s installation in France, several 2e REP companies did their four-month tour in the UAE.
For its actions in Loyada and Kolwezi, the regiment was awarded the Military Valor Cross in 2012. That year, the 2e REP’s OMLT embedded training and mentoring team (ELMO in France) were the last elements of the regiment to serve in Afghanistan.
2e REP from 2013 to 2023: Africa and the Pacific
The year of 2013 brought a new wave of engagements in Sub-Saharan Africa, mainly in the Sahel region south of the Sahara. They responded to the growing activities of local insurgent and Islamist groups that were plaguing several countries at once (former parts of the French Empire).
The first of them was Operation Serval in Mali, which began in January 2013. During this operation, the 2e REP once again demonstrated its qualities. On the night of January 27-28, its 200-head detachment – Colonel Benoît Desmeulles, his tactical HQ, the GCP, and the 2nd Company reinforced by two platoons from the 1st Company and the CEA – carried out another French combat jump, after 35 years (since Kolwezi). Having been alerted in Calvi, the 2e REP men jumped over Timbuktu, a rebel-held Malian city, which was successfully captured then. The legionnaires remained in Mali until late April and conducted operations in the north of the country, in the Adrar Mountains. Staff Sergeant Vormezeele from the GCP was killed during the deployment.
At the same time, the 4th Company was deployed to the UAE (with a small logistical detachment in Jordan), while the 3rd Company served in Gabon.
In July 2013, the 2e REP earned a new fourragère, this time in the colors of the Military Valor Cross (red/white), thanks to two citations at the Army level. The unit received these citations for its actions in Afghanistan. Therefore, the men have worn two fourragères since then.
In December, another engagement began in the Central African Republic: Operation Sangaris, which continued until 2016. The 4th Company participated soon thereafter, in 2014.
In May 2014, another member of the GCP commandos, Sergeant Kalafut, was killed during the group’s new mission in Mali.
From August, a new engagement began in Africa: Operation Barkhane. A counterinsurgency operation aimed at radical Islamist groups in the Sahel region, it replaced the older Operation Epervier in Chad (launched in 1986) and the recent Operation Serval in Mali. Being of a large scale, Operation Barkhane was conducted across Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad, all former colonies of France. In January 2015, the regiment deployed there for four months, with Colonel Jean-Michel Meunier, his tactical HQ, the GCP, and the HQ, 1st, and CEA Companies. In April, during the deployment, the 1st Company carried out another successful night combat jump, this time to occupy the Salvador Pass in northern Niger (a country that the 2nd Company visited back in 1968).
In the meantime, the 3rd Company was deployed to the UAE. It was replaced later that year by the 4th.
In December 2015, the 5th Company (combat company) was created within the regiment in response to new challenges. Its specialty was desert warfare. The existing 5th Maintenance Company lost its number in title. In addition, the CEA was reorganized and became CA. Its Recon and MILAN Platoons disappeared and were replaced by the Machine Gun and SAD ones. The SAD (Direct Combat Support) Platoon has been equipped with the new MMP anti-tank system.
Also that year, following the January 2015 Île-de-France attacks (including the Charlie Hebdo shooting), France’s Vigipirate plan was reinforced. Thus, Operation Sentinelle was launched. The 2e REP companies participate on a regular basis in French cities to guard streets and protect sensitive points from terrorism.
In 2017, the regiment commemorated its 50 years spent in Corsica’s Calvi. The same year, its men (3rd Coy) once again deployed to French Guiana, while the 2nd Company men trained in New Zealand, and those from the CA in Germany.
In mid-2018, the 2e REP units redeployed to Africa’s Sahel to take part in the ongoing Operation Barkhane. In late September, the men carried out a combat jump in the remote Menaka region of northeastern Mali.
Meanwhile, within the regiment, the new HK 416 F rifle was replacing the old FAMAS.
In 2019, the 2nd Company deployed to Mayotte, a French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, to reinforce the Legion’s Mayotte Detachment (DLEM) as its rotational company. In the meantime, the regiment no longer possessed the CAS company, recently disbanded.
The 2e REP men (a 220-head detachment) returned to the Central African Republic during the Covid-related year of 2020 to maintain order there for four months. In March, they moved to Mali to reinforce Operation Barkhane’s forces.
The same year, the 2nd Company trained with U.S. and British paratroopers in England. Such joint exercises alongside U.S. or British personnel have been organized quite often since 2013.
In 2021, two companies (1st, 5th) did their four-month tour in New Caledonia, while strict health restrictions continued to limit common military life in many ways in France. Nevertheless, the 5th Company men were able to train with their colleagues in Australia.
The following year, the 1st Company deployed to Djibouti after a long pause, while the 5th returned to New Caledonia. The CA visited Ivory Coast and conducted an exercise there with the local forces.
In the meantime, France decided to reduce its overseas activities, mainly in Africa. This resulted in the cancellation of Operation Barkhane in late 2022.
In May 2023, the 2e REP men saw action in Niger, where they deployed for only a few days. There, they carried out another successful night combat jump, alongside Nigerien troops. This time, the goal was to seize a local military post captured by rebels. However, a coup d’état led by members of the presidential guard and the same armed forces occurred in the country in July, resulting in a request for the withdrawal of French units.
Currently, in late 2023, the regiment remains an elite, well-trained operational unit focused partially on the Pacific region. It is still respected around the world, mainly among its Western army colleagues, who seek to train with the “REPmen.” Because of the geopolitical situation, some previous theaters of operations recently ceased to exist. However, that doesn’t mean new ones can’t appear. Only time will tell what new challenges face the 2nd Foreign Parachute Regiment in the near future. Ultimately, all challenges are welcome, even the hardest ones. As one of its former commanders said, nothing is impossible for such a professional unit. We couldn’t agree more.
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Main information sources:
Képi blanc magazines
Foreign Legion annual bulletins
Jean Luc Mesager & collective: Légionnaires parachutistes 1948-2008 (L’Esprit du Livre, 2008)
Pierre Montagnon: Les parachutistes de la Légion (Pygmalion, 2005)
Pierre Montagnon: Histoire de la Légion (Pygmalion, 1999)
Pierre Dufour: Légionnaires parachutistes (Editions du Fer, 1989)
J. P. Benavente: More Majorum – Le 2e REP (Technic Imprim, 1982)
Alain Gandy: La Légion en Algérie (Presses de la Cité, 1992)
Henri Le Mire: L’épopée moderne de la Légion (SPL, 1977)
Fanion Vert et Rouge (Fr)
Google.com
Wikipedia.org
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More about the history of Foreign Legion paratroopers:
1st Foreign Parachute Battalion
1st Foreign Parachute Regiment
3rd Foreign Parachute Regiment
Parachute Company of 3e REI
1st Heavy Mortar Foreign Parachute Company
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The page was updated on: December 15, 2023