Why does France have a foreign legion?

Are there not enough French who have the guts to do the job?

If I remember -- this was their way of sending the poor to Africa, etc, so the poor would no pollute Paris.

i always thought france had a foriegn legion so it could surrender at home and abroad

because they think the word "legion" sounds cool.
they get to say "hey look at us we have a foreign LEGION!"
what kind of legions do you guys have?
o, thats what i thought.

but your right. france just sucks at fighting in general.
that is wierd.

Now then, I must ask you to accompany me down to the dairy and do some aptitude tests.

It was created as a unit for foreign volunteers, because foreigners were forbidden to enlist in the French Army at the time of its creation (around 1830 i think)

The foreign legion exists so that they can send foreigners to their deaths and not Frenchmen. This is exactly why the Foreign legion was formed and they were usually used to perform dangerous missions as high casualty rates among Frenchmen would have damaged public opinion of French foreign policy

The French Foreign was founded during the period of French expansion into North Africa in the 1830/40's. The "Foreign" in the title refers not to the menbers, but to the fact that it was to be station outside of continnental France and would not be used in Europe. Most of fhe members, and all of the officers, have always been French nationals.

The idea that it was a fefuge for miscreants of all nationalties has some basis in fact but is largely the product of non-French fiction writers.

France was not the only nation with a Foreign Legion. Spain has one as well, which was stationed in North Africa and became the core of the forces that General Franco used during the Spanish Civil War to establish his dictatorship.

At various times, certain unit of the US military had very high numbers of non-US citizens and served in the PI. The US Navy enlisted many Flipino's as stewards and mess attendants from the early 1900's until late in the 20th century.

Britian raised an entire army in India consiting of men from India, Pakistan and other areas of the Indian sub-continent. There weere several regular British Army unit serving long term in India or Burma that had very high numbers of non-British troops.

During WWI many Americans volunteered for service with the British and Frence forces before the US entered the war. The most famous of these being the aviators fo the Lafeyette Esquadrile.

Thsi was repeated during WWII with many Americans joining the Royal Air Force. Several Brish Army units were mainly composed of bolunteers from the Irish Republic and there was a Jewish Brigade in North Africa.

Quite to the contrary, Frenchmen don't serve in the Legion. It's a useful device. Imagine the difference in current US politics if those 3700 dead soldiers in Iraq were all illegal immigrants signed into an American Legion Etranger.