Recruiting in the Légion étrangère

The Légion étrangère is a worldwide known French exception. It has 9,000 men in its ranks and recruits about a thousand young legionnaires a year, with a high selectivity rate. The Légion has the reputation of welcoming people with a heavy past who have their backs against the wall. This cliché is detrimental to recruiters. Thus, the recruitment office of the Légion étrangère, without banalising the institution, must make attractive a profession that is believed to be reserved for desperate men. This is the paradoxical mission that Battalion Chief Henry will detail. He draws some lessons from principles proven in the profession of arms, which he applies in the communications field: the effect of empathy, the effectiveness of resourcefulness combined with firepower, the imperative of simplicity, a top-down approach on a human scale and the management of anchoring bias are the main ones.