Notable people who served in the Foreign Legion. The following is a list of legionnaires who have gained fame or notoriety inside or outside of the legion.
Officers
- Alexandre Joseph Count Colonna-Walewski, non-marital son of Napoleon I
- Prince Aage of Denmark
- Dimitri Amilakvari - Georgian noble, became an iconic figure of the Free French Forces.
- Paul Arnaud de Foïard
- Crown Prince Bảo Long (Chữ nôm 保隆) of Vietnam - head of the Nguyễn Dynasty, the now deposed Emperors of Vietnam
- François Achille Bazaine - Marshal of France
- Prince Louis Napoléon - Prince Imperial
- Dominique Borella- French mercenary and anti-Communist
- Augustus Buchel
- François Certain Canrobert - Marshal of France
- Jean Danjou - Commander at the Battle of Camarón
- Jules Gaucher - commander 13 DBLE, killed at Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
- Georges Hamacek
- John F. "Jack" Hasey
- Pierre Jeanpierre
- Aarne Juutilainen
- Pierre Koenig
- André Lalande
- Jean-Marie Le Pen
- Prince Louis II of Monaco
- Patrice MacMahon - Marshal of France
- Raoul Magrin-Vernerey
- Pierre Messmer
- Peter Ortiz, (Acting Lieutenant)
- Henri, comte de Paris
- Zinovy Peshkov
- Rémy Raffalli
- Peter I of Serbia King of Serbia and SHS
- Jacques Leroy de Saint Arnaud - Marshal of France
- Hélie de Saint Marc - former resistant deported to Buchenwald, participated in the Algiers putsch.
- Gabriel Brunet de Sairigné - Colonel dead on duty in 1948, Compagnon de la Libération
- Pierre Segrétain
- Sisowath Monivong, 1908-9, then prince, later King of Cambodia
- Josef Šnejdárek- French legionnaire, officer and later Czechoslovakian general
- Susan Travers
- James Waddell - New Zealander in the French Foreign Legion
Enlisted
- Léon Ashkenazi, also known as Manitou, Jewish philosopher
- Arthur Bluethenthal, All American football player and decorated World War I pilot
- Giuseppe Bottai, Italian minister
- Eugene Bullard, First African-American military pilot
- Blaise Cendrars, Swiss novelist and poet
- Max Deutsch, Austrian composer
- François Faber, Luxembourgian cyclist and Tour de France winner
- Siegfried Freytag, German fighter ace
- Jean Genet, French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist
- Ante Gotovina, former lieutenant general of the Croatian Army
- Hans Hartung, German-French painter
- Erwin James (Monahan), British journalist and murderer
- Ernst Jünger, German writer
- Aarne Juutilainen, Finnish army captain
- Norman Kerry, U.S. actor
- Moise Kisling, Polish painter
- Billy Meier, Swiss ufologist, photographer
- Arthur Koestler, Jewish-Hungarian polymath author
- Raoul Lufbery, French-American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I
- Rodion Malinovsky, Soviet Marshal and Defence Minister.
- Simon Murray, British businessman, adventurer, author and the oldest man to reach the South Pole unsupported
- Peter Julien Ortiz, American, later decorated USMC officer and OSS operative in Occupied France during WWII (Also served in the Legion as an acting Lieutenant)
- Radomir Pavitchevitch
- Cole Porter, [1] American composer and songwriter
- Alex Rowe, serving British national
- Akihiko Saito, Japanese hostage in Iraq who later died in captivity
- Pal Sárközy de Nagy-Bócsa, advertiser, father of French President Nicolas Sarkozy
- Alan Seeger, American poet
- Rolf Steiner, Professional Soldier of Fortune in Biafra and Southern Sudan
- Milorad Ulemek, Serbian former militant
- Oswald Watt, Australian aviator
- William A. Wellman, American film director
- Mamady Doumbouya, Guinean Colonel
Honorary
- Dick Applegate
- Marcel Bigeard
- Christian de Castries
- Geneviève de Galard – nurse at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, honorary Légionnaire de 1ère classe.
- Ante Gotovina - Croatian General
- Pierre Langlais
- Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. Honorary Caporal (Corporal)