Word: deuxi
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...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 Deuxième 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...
Like other troops in the Foreign Legion created by King Louis Philippe in 1831 to pursue France's colonial ambitions, members of the Deuxième 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 Deuxième 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...
...Deuxième is best remembered for its rescue of 2,500 European civilians trapped when Katangan rebels tried to take over the Zaïre 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 Deuxième REP has been incorporated into France's equivalent of a Rapid Deployment Force...
Joining the Deuxième in Lebanon are several hundred troops of an equally distinguished unit. The Troisième RPIM (Third Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment) was formed in French-held Algeria during World War II. To bolster its ranks the Troisième 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 Troisième was sent to Indochina, where it was cited for bravery in the battle of Dien Bien...
...soon became disturbed by the obstacles that traditional business secrecy placed in the path of expanding business activity. He decided to shatter the secrecy with an organization that would function partly like a Wall Street brokerage house and, by necessity, partly like the French government's intelligence-hunting Deuxième Bureau. With a loan from Zurich's Swiss Credit Bank, he opened offices in his apartment: his staff used a bedroom and dining room, his secretary typed in the bathroom, and the mimeograph machine whirred in the kitchen. Eurofinance made a profit the second year, moved...