Book review: Legionnaire
Legionnaire is the autobiography of a young Englishman who joined the French Foreign Legion.
If you are intending to do business with the Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company Glencore, you might want to read this book because the Englishman in question is Simon Murray, Glencore's chairman.
While his contemporaries trotted off to university, a 19-year-old Murray presented himself, on February 22 ,1960, at the gates of the Old Fort at Vincennes on the outskirts of Paris and signed away the next five years of his life.
In his own words, he was, "a young buck setting himself an extreme challenge to see if he could hack it in a man's world".
Middle class, well-educated and with a broken love affair behind him, he had decided following the footsteps of Beau Geste would be "romantic". But what followed was an all too real coming of age drama in the ranks of the toughest infantry in the world.
He endured a training regime legendary for its brutality, qualified as a paratrooper and killed with his own hands during Algeria's war of independence.
However, the cauldron of the Legion Etranger's "March! Or Die!" tradition did not break this young man.
He served his full tour of duty, was promoted to corporal and on his discharge went on to join Jardine Matheson in Hong Kong, founded the mobile phone company Orange, become the executive chairman of Deutsche Bank in Asia and joined Glencore.
He had sought adventure but what he found was courage in full measure, integrity and a camaraderie that crossed all boundaries of language, culture and creed. And in his story, you'll get an inkling of the character of the man you might be dealing with.
Legionnaire: An Englishman in the French Foreign Legion is published by Sidgwick & Jackson.
dblack@thenational.ae
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The alternatives
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T20 World Cup Qualifier fixtures
Tuesday, October 29
Qualifier one, 2.10pm – Netherlands v UAE
Qualifier two, 7.30pm – Namibia v Oman
Wednesday, October 30
Qualifier three, 2.10pm – Scotland v loser of qualifier one
Qualifier four, 7.30pm – Hong Kong v loser of qualifier two
Thursday, October 31
Fifth-place playoff, 2.10pm – winner of qualifier three v winner of qualifier four
Friday, November 1
Semi-final one, 2.10pm – Ireland v winner of qualifier one
Semi-final two, 7.30pm – PNG v winner of qualifier two
Saturday, November 2
Third-place playoff, 2.10pm
Final, 7.30pm
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
