On 01Aug2020 0354, Phil Pugliese - philpugliese at yahoo.com (via tml
list) wrote:
> Interesting comment about the French Army.
>
> Now that they are 'all volunteer' I thought maybe that would change.
>
> Back when they were conscripting they would almost always send the
> French Foreign Legion into situations like Afghanistan.
> Something about conscript service being restricted to europe or
> metropolitan France or something like that.
Sending voters off to fight foreign wars that they didn't sign up for
tends to result in changes in government, so that seems sensible as the
Foreign Legion is made up of volunteers and many/most (depending on
period) don't have votes...
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Multiple sources indicate that french citizens are banned from enlisting.
However, a lot of them just say that they are belgian or italian.
For officers it's different as french army offcers seem to consider it a plum assignment.
And, it seems that they still have the tradition that you can gain a new identity, no questions asked or entertained.
No sure how accurate it could be but one book I read even claimed that full retirement was gained after only 15 years & that french citizenship would also be offered to cement your new identity if you had taken one.
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