Immigrants and the French Foreign Legion

Del Young suggested to me a solution to the huge number of immigrants flooding across the Med to Greece and Italy. Do they want to stay in Greece or Italy? Of course not they want to come to the UK where the streets are paved with gold and where they speak English which most of these  migrants understand as opposed to Greek or Italian which they don’t understand.

The solution for the Greek and Italian government is simple. Give them a passport which gives them free movement within the EU and give them a train ticket to London and just watch them disappear.

I prefer the solution the  French hit upon this in 1831, the Foreign Legion. I quote from Wikipedia

 The French Foreign Legion was created by a royal ordinance issued by King Louis Philippe, at the suggestion of Minister of War Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult, on March 9, 1831. Nine days later on March 18, 1831, an additional directive was issued restricting membership in the newly formed Legion to foreigners. The latter directive reflected the initial purpose of the Foreign Legion as a mechanism to lessen the potential disruption to the provisional French government and the newly enthroned House of Orléans posed by the large influx of foreigners following the collapse of the Bourbon Restoration in the previous year’s July Revolution.^[1] Some of these foreigners in France were the remnants of regiments formed during the campaigns of Napoleon of Germans, Swedes, Poles, Hungarians, and others. These foreign veterans had been left with little means and professional military training which proved to be of concern the French government. Many had flocked to France following the July Revolution or came to France following failures of the revolutionary or independence movements throughout Europe; in addition to an influx of idealistic revolutionaries and nationalist, France also became home to large numbers of immigrants who had removed from their countries of origin for economic or personal reasons. This influx of foreigners had become a significant burden for the newly established French government’s administrative capabilities; for example during March 1831 a depot established in Langres, France to accommodate these recent immigrants had been inundated to point of overstretch.^[2] Furthermore French military operations in Algeria, which had commenced under Charles X, had proven unpopular with portions of the French populace as the campaign, despite its initial success, had become bogged down in the occupation of that country. The formation of the Foreign Legion would help address the domestic threat of dissidents fomenting political instability while contributing to government’s colonial endeavors in Algeria.

Same problem we face today but of course there was no Human Rghts Act in 1831 but still it was an imaginative solution, n’est pas mon Colonel?

It has fought in all French wars since up to and including Afghanistan.

No questions asked about your past  except are you a murderer or drug pusher You have to sign up for a minimum of 5 years. You get board and lodging and reasonable pay. If you survive you get a French passport a clean recordt and an fresh start in life.

Given lots of these immigrants hate each other I am sure they would jump at the chance of kicking sh** out of the other lot.

Worth looking at Major or should I say Beau Geste?