French Foreign Legion Winemakers

The French Foreign Legion is going into the wine business to raise funds for its aging veterans.

Commander-in-chief General Louis Pichot de Champfleury launched the Legion's wines at a recent grand ceremony. Called 'Esprit de Corps' to embody the Legionnaire spirit, its 2007 Côtes de Provence red and rosé vintages are produced from grapes grown on a property in southern France acquired by the outfit in 1953 to shelter its war wounded, as well as its elderly former fighters.

"This is about solidarity," the fiftyish-Gen. Champfleury told soldiers and defence-ministry personnel gathered in the premises of Paris' military governor.

Established in 1831, the crack 7,700-strong French Foreign Legion corps was set up as a unit for foreign volunteers, often misfits and miscreants who could change their identities and turn a page on their past by fighting the enemies of France.

Made up of men from about 140 nations, the mystique of the adventure-seeking corps was enshrined in such Hollywood movies as Beau Geste and March or Die.

"Solidarity is not a hollow concept for us," Gen. Champfleury said. "The men we recruit often join because they have no other choice, they arrive brutally, they may have faced death, their situation is often delicate." Integrating recruits with diverse backgrounds and languages into hardened combat units was something that the Legion knew how to do.

But dealing with their veterans long cut from family and friends was another fighting matter, "When legionnaires are forced to return to civilian life, it can be difficult and when we hear of a legionnaire in distress, we fly to their rescue," Gen. Champfleury said.

With the French govenment's cost cuts, the French Foreign Legion desperately needed funds for its veterans' homes. At any one time, some 100 to 150 elderly, homeless, landless veterans were in the Legion's care, said ex-legionnaire Guy Gerard, who spent 25 years fighting in Africa before taking over the vineyards in Puyloubier, near the town of Aubagne. The men who worked in the vineyards were generally between 50 and 70 years old.

An officer from the Puyloubier property, a Lieutenant-Colonel Xavier Lantaires, described the wines as: "Strong when attacked, solid on the onslaught, full of grapeshot on the front line."

Wines available at www.legion-boutique.com/

» Source: Agence France-Presse (C. Rosemberg report)