First, the Frence Foreign Legion

The 350 troops who landed at Beirut's port at dawn on Saturday belong to one of the most decorated units in the French army: the Foreign Legion's Deuxieme REP (Second Foreign Parachute Regiment), whose history goes back to 1948, when, as the Second Foreign Parachute Battalion, it was sent to Cambodia to maintain internal security. In 1954, as Viet Minh guerrillas tightened their siege of the French base at Dien Bien Phu, 700 members of the battalion were dropped into the camp at night as last-minute reinforcements. Although the French were eventually defeated, the legionnaires fought heroically.

Like other troops in the Foreign Legion created by King Louis Philippe in 1831 to pursue France's colonial ambitions, members of the Deuxieme REP ostensibly are foreigners. In fact, many are Frenchmen who, with the tacit complicity of the legion, join by pretending to be Belgian, Swiss or Canadian. One attraction for recruits: new identity papers that protect them from the police. The Deuxieme claims to have killed or wounded some 4,000 rebels during the Algerian war, while only 171 of its men were killed and 427 wounded. The unit remained neutral when the First Foreign Parachute Regiment backed an attempted coup against President Charles de Gaulle and was subsequently disbanded.

The Deuxieme is best remembered for its rescue of 2,500 European civilians trapped when Katangan rebels tried to take over the Zaire city of Kolwezi in 1978. More than 100 civilians were killed before two daring airdrops brought some 600 paratroopers to engage the rebels in street-by-street fighting that ultimately restored order. The French lost four men in the entire operation. Since Kolwezi, the Deuxieme REP has been incorporated into France's equivalent of a Rapid Deployment Force.

Joining the Deuxieme in Lebanon are several hundred troops of an equally distinguished unit. The Troisieme RPIM (Third Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment) was formed in French-held Algeria during World War II. To bolster its ranks the Troisieme sent recruiters to. London to enlist Frenchmen who had escaped from the occupied mainland. After parachuting into France, the force went on to take part in the jubilant liberation of Paris. In 1948 the Troisieme was sent to Indochina, where it was cited for bravery in the battle of Dien Bien Phu.

The regiment's last major action, ironically, was as part of the United Nations peace-keeping force that was assigned to Lebanon in 1978. The regiment stopped patrolling in the demilitarized U.N. zone after P.L.O. forces opened fire on the regiment's outposts and ambushed its commander, Jean-Germain Salvan, wounding him seriously.

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