Roger "Rene" Faulques (14 December 1924-6 November 2011) was a Chef de Bataillon of the French Army, a French Foreign Legion paratrooper, and a famed mercenary. Faulques took part in numerous mercenary conflicts, including the Congo Crisis (during which he commanded the Katanga Gendarmerie), and he became one of the highest-decorated French legionnaires.
Biography[]
Faulques at the Siege of Jadotville in 1961
Roger Faulques was born in France on 14 December 1924, and he joined the French Resistance in 1944 during World War II. He served in the French 1st Army as a corporal, fighting in the last battles of the war and receiving the Croix de guerre medal. After the war, he rose to be an officer in the French Foreign Legion, and he served in the First Indochina War as a paratrooper commander. He was repatriated after his battalion was decimated in 1950, and he received five citations after being heavily wounded at Cao Bang. Faulques would serve as an intelligence officer during the Algerian War, partaking in torture sessions, and he became a soldier of fortune after the war's end. In 1961, Faulques and 1,000 other former Foreign Legion troops were hired by European mining companies in Congo-Leopoldville as "security guards", but they were actually placed under the command of President of Katanga Moise Tshombe, and they were used to take part in the Siege of Jadotville in 1961. Faulques forced the ONUC peacekeepers to surrender after suffering heavy losses. From August 1963 to 1964, Faulques and Bob Denard served as mercenaries for MI6 in North Yemen, and the two of them joined several French and Belgian mercenaries in fighting for French intelligence during the Nigerian Civil War in Biafra, indulging in alcohol and women instead of getting paid. He retired from the military in 1991, and he died in 2011 at the age of 86.