Foreign Legion – Rainforest training hell | DW Documentary
The combat school in the rainforest. It‘s one of the toughest training programs run by the Foreign Legion. In the 3rd Regiment, legionnaires and the special units of friendly armies are trained under particularly harsh conditions.
The soldiers camp in the rainforest, food is rationed and there are no sanitary facilities. Unconditional obedience is mandatory, and even the smallest mistakes are severely punished.
The 3rd Infantry Regiment of the French Foreign Legion (3e Régiment Étranger d’Infanterie) has been stationed in French Guiana since 1973. It is a region that consists of 90 percent forest and is one of the rainiest areas in the world – inhospitable conditions for both the legionnaires and their equipment.
The fight against illegal gold prospecting is known as the “Harpie mission”. Legionnaires comb through the rainforest before sunrise, often in the pouring rain, to track down the prospectors, who are organized in mafia-like structures and sometimes heavily armed.
A second mission in French Guiana is called “Titan”. In this mission, legionnaires protect the international spaceport in Kourou. They have been carrying out this task since 2008.
At the training center, the CEFE (Centre d’entraînement en forêt équatoriale), legionnaires as well as soldiers from friendly armies are trained in combat. There are usually around 40 participants on a course, most of whom do not make it to the end. Injuries occur on a daily basis and many participants drop out due to total exhaustion or dehydration. The documentary accompanies a legionnaire and a female officer candidate in the French military as they face increasingly tough challenges every day, which repeatedly push them to their physical and mental limits. The documentary offers insights into a world that is very rarely seen by outsiders.
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Video “Foreign Legion – Rainforest training hell | DW Documentary” was uploaded on 10/30/2025 by DW Documentary Youtube channel.