Hello everybody.

I have tried to follow various conversations in the forum concerning French qualification badges and especially about brevet para with huge amount of manufacturers.

My main question is: Is there an official manufacturer producing the original wings issued with certificate in Para School at Pau and all other brevets are bought from Foyers?

Or does the Para School order their brevets each time from different manufacturer?

Is it personal choice which wing one wears as I suppose most soldiers want to wear the original numbered one most of the time and de-luxe model in parade uniform?

All the best, Harri

Thanks for your answer whodareswins.
So as always, it is mainly financial matter.
No sweat with the language, your English is better than my French.
All the best, Harri.

Bonjour, ,
One thing occured to my mind after reading the book "French Parachutist Brevets" by Lafleur and Pugh. There is a list of brevet numbers so one can try to identify the year of the award.
One legionnaire serving 2e REP in early 90's mentioned to me that the legionnaires usually stamp the last 6 digits of their immatriculation number at the back of the replacement wing, meaning the extras they bought from Foyer for other uniforms.
The reason for this was that this number was easier to remember than the brevet number and by this stamping they tried avoid a fellow soldier "borrowing" their wing.
How widely this method was used?
It is confusing for a collector if this is common procedure among French soldiers, many wings might be wrongly dated.


Cordialement, Harri

Hi Harry,

For my part i never heard this ! so ! surely, i will not help you more , but look at this page , you will find the matriculation numbes gived to the foreign legion .
Contact Albin by the private mail , like he had served with the REP may be he know something about this .
http://www.union-nat-parachutistes.org/brevets/BP2.html

See you .
KR48

Hello again and thank you KR48 for most reliefing information. I really hope this type of numbr stamping was just used for a short time and in very limited group of Legion paras. Thanks also for the link.

Yours, Harri.

Bonjour a tous,

As I was sorting my collection, I noticed that I have one of those replacement parawings (Moniteur) with last numbers of matriculation, in this case 4 last numbers stamped by the guy himself for identification purposes. This wing has belonged to a Legion NCO who served in the early 90's.



Cordialement, Harri.

Bonjour again ,

just occured to my mind to ask what are the test requirements for French para brevet, brevet para moniteur, brevet HAHO/HALO and instructeur HALO/HAHO?

Cordialement, Harri.