History of the 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment 1948–1961 – From the Rice Fields of Indochina to the Algiers Putsch

The rise and fall of an elite regiment caught in the turmoil of the decolonisation wars. The 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment, which entered posterity for having been the spearhead of the " generals' revolt " in Algiers that prompted its dissolution by General de Gaulle on 30 April 1961, occupies a singular place in the history of the French Foreign Legion. A simple battalion created at the start of the Indochina War at Sidi-Bel-Abbès, it was committed to Tonkin as early as November 1948.

It was there that it first saw action, until its destruction during the battle of the RC4 (September–October 1950). Having taken part in all the major operations, the 1st REP was once again wiped out during the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Converted into an intervention regiment on its return to Algeria, attached to General Massu's 10th Parachute Division, it took part in the Suez campaign, the battles of Algiers (1957) and of the frontiers (1958), and the major operations of the Challe Plan (1959–1960).

History records that since the battalion's creation the regiment had fourteen commanding officers — four of them interim — and weathered several crises which, without the bedrock of Legion traditions upheld by the exceptional character of its officers, might have jeopardised its cohesion. Four exceptional officers mark this epic: Commandant Segrétain, killed on the RC4; Colonel Jeanpierre, who disappeared in the Guelma region; Colonel Brothier; and finally Commandant Denoix de Saint Marc, the archetype of the Legion officer caught in the turmoil of the decolonisation wars between discipline and loyalty to a given word.

The definitive work on a legendary regiment.