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How is the annual Camerone ceremony held at Aubagne?
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French Foreign Legion
Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion in a parade celebrating Bastille Day in Paris.
The annual Camerone ceremony, held on April 30 at the French Foreign Legion headquarters in Aubagne, commemorates the 1863 Battle of Camarón. This event serves as the unit's official feast day and a symbol of heroic sacrifice.12
Key elements of the ceremony include:
- Veneration of the Relic: The wooden prosthetic hand of Captain Jean Danjou, the officer who led the defense at Camarón, is removed from the crypt of the Legion Museum of Memory for public veneration.13
- The Procession: The relic is paraded down the voie sacrée ("sacred way") before a column of slow-marching, bearded sappers carrying axes at shoulder arms. Being selected to carry the hand is considered a high honor.3
- Commemoration: A senior NCO recites a description of the battle, and Foreign Legion officers serve coffee to their troops to commemorate the coffee that the legionnaires were forced to abandon on the morning of the battle.13
- Focus: The ceremony centers on the legion’s monument of the dead, which was relocated to Aubagne from Sidi Bel Abbès, Algeria.3