I have just little points to had:
_since 1997, the french army is a professional army,
- the legion is as said by narwan not deployed the same as other units: they cannot (theoricaly) be deployed in France, and they are always deployed where the army could take heavy casualtys, for exemple in Ivory Coast, first where insertid COS commandos, then Legion and after that, the main "peacekeeping"(
) force composed of RIMa (=Marines)
-what is said about french patriotic sense is a bit caricatural but sadly not so false, I can assume that the army as really a patriotic sense (ouf!) but the population is only patriotic when it goes with his own interress (for t least 56% of them...)
-for more informations about the Legion:
http://www.foreignlegionlife.com/
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Is it true that the German army has conscripts?
It woud be really funny if draftee units have more experience than professional ones...
I understand that it is difficult to change country training but it's not normal that the french experience stays the same before 97 and after 97...