If you notice any errors in the translations, remember:
"In the Legion, of the 144 languages, there is only one language: understanding each other."
About Legion'Arts
Solidarity in the French Foreign Legion
By Louis Perez y Cid
Solidarity is not born of joy. It is born of pain. We feel closer to those with whom we have suffered than to those with whom we have succeeded. Happiness flatters the ego. Adversity, however, forges bonds between men. In every collective victory, a touch of bitterness creeps in. Each person assesses their contribution, compares themselves, sometimes feeling wronged. Families are torn apart over inheritances, groups fragment after success, movements disintegrate once power is seized. Triumph divides. Misfortune unites.
The cohesion of a core group is forged elsewhere, in the memory of a shared ordeal. It is there that the individual fades into the background, giving way to the body. In the French Foreign Legion, this memory has a name: Camerone.
It is not a happy myth. It is a defeat, an agony, a loyalty unto death. But this is precisely why it is the foundation of Legionary solidarity. Victory is not celebrated here, but sacrifice. Not success, but loyalty in the face of adversity.
The etymology states it plainly. Sympathy and compassion mean "to suffer with." In the Legion, solidarity is not an abstract feeling. It is a lived experience, passed down, and remembered. It is the invisible bond that unites those who have fallen, those who still suffer, and those who continue to serve.
Read more...
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Views of the Elders
Between Loyalty and Change
This text seemed controversial to me, so I read it carefully. But no, Antoine isn't settling scores or lamenting a golden age. With the experience of nearly forty years of service in the French Foreign Legion, he observes what is changing today, sometimes subtly, in customs, symbols, and points of reference.
His remarks may surprise or disturb. They are nonetheless sincere. They pose a simple yet essential question: how can we evolve without losing what constitutes the soul of an institution?
This text doesn't offer a ready-made answer. It invites reflection, and that is precisely why I felt it deserved to be read.
Finally, the text leaves me with a sense of generational loneliness. The loneliness of someone who honestly wonders if he has become an "old fogey" or if he is simply one of the last guardians of a certain coherence. This is a worried but honest account, written not to condemn the present, but to remind us that all modernization has a symbolic cost, and that this cost deserves to be faced head-on.
Louis Perez y Cid
His remarks may surprise or disturb. They are nonetheless sincere. They pose a simple yet essential question: how can we evolve without losing what constitutes the soul of an institution?
This text doesn't offer a ready-made answer. It invites reflection, and that is precisely why I felt it deserved to be read.
Finally, the text leaves me with a sense of generational loneliness. The loneliness of someone who honestly wonders if he has become an "old fogey" or if he is simply one of the last guardians of a certain coherence. This is a worried but honest account, written not to condemn the present, but to remind us that all modernization has a symbolic cost, and that this cost deserves to be faced head-on.
Louis Perez y Cid
Evolution, drift, or both?
Antoine Marquet (LCL. Te-er)
Perishable goods all have an expiration date. Like any animal, I too am perishable, and as this deadline approaches, without, fortunately, knowing the fateful date, I can feel myself becoming an old fogey, perhaps out of fashion. Perhaps wrongly, I am surprised—and sometimes worried—by the significant changes observed in the professional military world, and more specifically in the Foreign Legion, where I served for almost four decades. Each day seems to bring its share of new developments, some anecdotal, others more revealing. Read more...
Perishable goods all have an expiration date. Like any animal, I too am perishable, and as this deadline approaches, without, fortunately, knowing the fateful date, I can feel myself becoming an old fogey, perhaps out of fashion. Perhaps wrongly, I am surprised—and sometimes worried—by the significant changes observed in the professional military world, and more specifically in the Foreign Legion, where I served for almost four decades. Each day seems to bring its share of new developments, some anecdotal, others more revealing. Read more...
Reflexions
The Greenland Question
By Louis Perez y Cid
Through this text, I salute Peter, his wife Kirsten, Lars, and our other former legionnaires living in Denmark.
Through this text, I salute Peter, his wife Kirsten, Lars, and our other former legionnaires living in Denmark.
A world we talk about without ever listening to those who inhabit it
In June 1951, after many months spent among the Inuit of northwest Greenland, Jean Malaurie* witnessed an unreal vision emerge from the tundra: a city of metal, hangars, and smoke. Where silence and hunting still reigned, the secret American base of Thule had just been born. For the explorer, this emergence marked an irreversible shift, that of the Inuit world.
In one summer, the United States deployed 12,000 men and an entire fleet to build, on frozen ground, one of its largest military bases abroad.
The threat of a Soviet attack via the polar route served as justification. For the Inuit, it was a silent annexation, the brutal intrusion of a world of machines, speed, and nuclear weapons into a world governed by hunting and the rhythms of life.
In one summer, the United States deployed 12,000 men and an entire fleet to build, on frozen ground, one of its largest military bases abroad.
The threat of a Soviet attack via the polar route served as justification. For the Inuit, it was a silent annexation, the brutal intrusion of a world of machines, speed, and nuclear weapons into a world governed by hunting and the rhythms of life.
The American Presence
The American presence in Greenland, however, did not begin with the Cold War. As early as 1941, after the Nazi occupation of Denmark, the United States established several bases there to secure the North Atlantic and air routes to Europe. The defense agreement signed in 1951 between Washington and Copenhagen formalized this presence and allowed for the construction of Thule. Read more...
Facts
AALE and JAL: Evolution?
Between impeccably organized traditions… and evolutions that overflow the boundaries. Associations of former legionnaires were created to bring together those who have experienced something that can never truly be explained to others. A story of mud, fatigue, brotherhood… and memories that are only half-told, because the other half is either guessed or left unsaid.
Officially, they talk about ceremonies, flags, and traditions. Unofficially, everyone knows that the essence lies elsewhere: in the phone call made at the right moment, the drink shared for no good reason, and that strange connection that sometimes allows you to understand each other without finishing sentences. In short, the Legion spirit doesn't reside in statutes. It circulates among people and likes to take shortcuts.
Each association has its own character. Garrison town, deep countryside, or remote corner of the world, each tells a different story. This is what makes them so valuable… and sometimes leads to endless meetings.
Officially, they talk about ceremonies, flags, and traditions. Unofficially, everyone knows that the essence lies elsewhere: in the phone call made at the right moment, the drink shared for no good reason, and that strange connection that sometimes allows you to understand each other without finishing sentences. In short, the Legion spirit doesn't reside in statutes. It circulates among people and likes to take shortcuts.
Each association has its own character. Garrison town, deep countryside, or remote corner of the world, each tells a different story. This is what makes them so valuable… and sometimes leads to endless meetings.
Young Veterans (JAL): The Question That Always Comes Up
Literary Explorations
Comics, the Meaning of Life
Unlike many politicians, our friend Christian keeps his promises. The second post on comics is still fresh off the press. He doesn't do this half-heartedly; there are no half measures. You can tell he's a comic book addict; he knows his stuff… Many years ago, he took me through the streets of Aix-en-Provence to show me a bookstore specializing in them. He probably doesn't remember it anymore, but I remember it very well, so astonished was I by the owners' passion for the world of comics, as if surprised by the glee in Christian's eyes. These comics aren't for kids; they're very adult and very serious.
I humbly confess that I never thought I could elevate my mind to such a degree—like on Jacob's Ladder, which he mentions—thanks to comics. But come to think of it… who knows!
Today he's talking about Calvin, complete with his tiger and his famous box. He feels literally hypnotized by the box's contents. As he himself says, it's a veritable Pandora's box where you find everything that can affect us in life.
A marvelous world where you can dive headfirst without being mistaken for an old man having a midlife crisis.
Our friend Christian has more in store for us…
Antoine Marquet.
Comics. Calvin and Hobbes
All this is happening above our heads
Life on Earth
On Earth, the extinction of the dinosaurs and the emergence of humankind.
While browsing in a library, a children's book, a comic book, caught my eye. It talked about our Earth and life, on the continents, in the seas, and in the air.
I was surprised by an image depicting men, admittedly dressed in animal skins, hunting dinosaurs. How can we allow the idea to creep into the minds of our children that these two living species could have coexisted?
Let's briefly recall these periods when Earth was home to these two "colonizers," dinosaurs and humans.
I was surprised by an image depicting men, admittedly dressed in animal skins, hunting dinosaurs. How can we allow the idea to creep into the minds of our children that these two living species could have coexisted?
Let's briefly recall these periods when Earth was home to these two "colonizers," dinosaurs and humans.
The Extinction of the Dinosaurs
Scientists place the creation of the Universe, the Big Bang, around 13.5 billion years ago.
Our solar system, including Earth, was born a little less than 5 billion years ago, to round off the figures.
We have to go back a little over 500 million years to see the Earth begin to show signs of life. Jellyfish and fish began to populate the seas. Then, on the continents, lichens and plants colonized the land.
Next came mammals and dinosaurs at the end of the Paleozoic Era, 250 million years ago. Read more...
Our solar system, including Earth, was born a little less than 5 billion years ago, to round off the figures.
We have to go back a little over 500 million years to see the Earth begin to show signs of life. Jellyfish and fish began to populate the seas. Then, on the continents, lichens and plants colonized the land.
Next came mammals and dinosaurs at the end of the Paleozoic Era, 250 million years ago. Read more...
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WHO WE ARE
Légion’Arts is an independent publishing house created by former legionnaire artists: preserving and sharing the memory of the Foreign Legion through authentic, human, and inspiring works. Every legionnaire has a voice. With Légion’Arts, these stories become a collective memory, accessible to all.