The French Foreign legion is a mercenary group it is not the french army. The Foreign Legion is comprise of solider for the old soviet block countries and x-pats from America and england etc... They have done the bidding of the french government before, but the regular french army has not won any major victories since the napolonic times.
"...the regular french army has not won any major victories since the napolonic times."
It is fascinating how the Maginot Line worked out. If I'm not mistaken, France had the highest military budget on earth at that particular time. It was an extremely expensive defense network, and the Germans conquered them with less money?