The Légion impériale was a military unit created by the Vichy French government in November 1942, with the support of Nazi Ambassador Otto Abetz, to oppose the Allies, who had invaded North Africa in order to drive the Axis out. In April 1943 it was renamed Légion des Volontaires Français de Tunisie (Legion of French Volunteers of Tunisia), and it went into captivity upon the Axis surrender in Africa in May.

This article does not cite any sources. (August 2008)

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in French. (October 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the French article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 6,145 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Phalange Africaine]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|fr|Phalange Africaine}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Active, Country ...

Légion impériale
Symbol of the Phalange Africaine
Active	November 1942 – May 1943
Country	Vichy France
Type	c.400-450
Size	Battalion
Part of	754th Panzergrenadier Regiment
Nickname(s)	Französische Freiwilligen Legion or Compagnie Frankonia
Engagements	World War II Tunisian Campaign

Close

They were only able to raise a single weak battalion for the Legion, called the Phalange Africaine (African phalanx). It consisted of 400-450 men, about 2/3 French and 1/3 Algerians.

The battalion was commanded by Colonel Simon Petru Cristofini.

In the spring of 1943 it fought along with the remnants of the German 334th Infantry Division.

• Operation Torch, North African Campaign
• Vichy France