Beau Geste, call your office.

Chicago Sun-Times: French foreign legion's allure fading in all-volunteer army
AUBAGNE, France -- The Foreign Legion isn't what it used to be. Murderers on the run are no longer welcome, and unhappy recruits have a year to back out without being branded deserters.

These days a bigger issue faces the 175-year-old force that made its name fighting France's overseas battles. Its key role -- to be a crack professional force available for far-flung conflicts -- has all but evaporated.

In campaigns from Algeria to Vietnam, Madagascar to Mexico, Legionnaires made up the bulk of the combat forces and suffered most of the casualties.

But this summer, when Paris contributed a 2,000-strong contingent to the U.N. force in Lebanon, it included only 200 Legion engineers.

For a 7,770-strong force, boasting 130 nationalities, with an identity epitomized by its trademark white hats, or kepis, there's no longer much to set the Legion apart from the rest of the French army.

Sending foreigners to fightFour years after France ended the draft, all 250,000 members of the armed forces are like the Legionnaires -- professionals and volunteers.

''They are an anachronism, the last remnants of a medieval mercenary tradition,'' said Dominique Moisi, a political analyst. ''While they were the only professionals in a conscript army, they made sense, but not now that everybody else is professional too.''

Legion spokesman Lt. Col. Christian Rascle insisted that France, still intent on being a force abroad, will continue to need the Legion.

''It will politically always be easier to dispatch foreigners rather than French soldiers to such places,'' he said.

Most recruits are men driven from their homelands by political turmoil, economic hardship or the need ''to start life all over again,'' he said. ''We know that a lot of our guys are not exactly angels, but unless they're hardened criminals we're prepared to give them a second, third or even a fourth chance,'' he said.

The spirit of the unit's motto -- ''The Legion our Fatherland'' -- remains strong.

When a reporter asked a corporal about his nationality, he replied: ''Me? I'm a Legionnaire.''