It’s funny how a random thought can send you down a rabbit hole. The other day, I was watching some old action flick, guys running around in the desert, the whole nine yards. And it just popped into my head – what about those French Foreign Legion guys? How old do you even have to be for that kind of gig?
So, I did what anyone does, I started digging online. My first search was probably something super simple like “French Legion age.” And pretty quickly, I found the basic numbers. They say you gotta be at least 17 and a half, but not older than 39 and a half when you first sign up. That seemed like a pretty specific window, you know?
For the younger guys, those under 18, they need their parents to say it’s okay. Makes sense. But that upper limit, 39 and a half, that’s pretty firm from what I gathered. I guess they figure you need to be young enough to handle the rough stuff they put you through. It’s not exactly a desk job, from all accounts.
But then I found out it’s not just about how many birthdays you’ve had. Age is a big filter, sure, but there’s more to it. I stumbled across some info about their recruitment standards. Like, if you’ve got a history of serious crimes, or you’ve been involved in drug trafficking, they’re generally not gonna take you. They do look at each person case by case, after an interview with a recruiter, which I thought was interesting. So it’s not just a flat “no” based on a piece of paper, they actually talk to you.
And then there’s the whole physical and medical side. It’s not enough to just be in the age bracket. Your body has to be up to it. I saw this thing about eyesight, they use a system called SIGYCOP. The ‘Y’ in that stands for ‘yeux’ – that’s French for eyes, which I thought was a neat little detail. They grade your vision on a scale, something like 1 to 6, where 1 is top-notch and 5 is the minimum you need. So even if you’re, say, 25, but your eyes don’t meet that standard, it could be a dealbreaker. Believe it or not, stuff like that really matters.
So, yeah, that journey started with a movie and ended with me learning a whole lot more than just an age range. It’s a whole package of things they look at. The age limit is just the first door you gotta fit through, and there are quite a few more after that, it seems.
