The Foreign Legion's foreign recruitment is interpreted here as reducing the domestic electoral cost of overseas warfare. It was often deployed abroad while receiving limited support at home. In this account, legionnaires' new identities and relatives outside the French electorate made casualties less politically costly than equivalent losses among French families. That helped governments sustain colonial and counterinsurgency campaigns despite continuing loss of life.
Notable Point · 2:24:55-2:25:40
The Foreign Legion and the electoral cost of casualties
One interpretation links foreign recruitment to the reduced domestic electoral cost of France's colonial and counterinsurgency casualties.