An exercise within an exercise took place on Thursday, February 19, 2026 in the morning at Lozère Hospital in Mende. The soldiers of the 13th Half-Brigade of the Foreign Legion and the various security services of the department had to deal with an exceptional event involving a terrorist.
While the soldiers of the 13th Half-Brigade of the Foreign Legion had finally managed to regain control of Mende on Wednesday, February 18, 2026, a violent individual took hostages on Thursday morning at the city’s hospital. This was the scenario of the anti-terrorist exercise organized by the prefecture in coordination with the municipal police, national police, the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service, and the hospital teams in Mende, who played the role of victims. Altogether, about a hundred people were mobilized for this “exercise within the exercise,” according to Colonel Benjamin Brunet, commander of the 13th Half-Brigade.
“Coordinating the different services”
Indeed, since the beginning of the week, Lozère was the center of a full-scale exercise called Gévaudan 2026. The maneuver was inspired by foreign situations, resembling intelligence warfare, and aimed to simulate reality as closely as possible to better prepare the Legionnaires for future external operations.
The final stage, before the naturalization decrees for ten Legionnaires, was this simulation of a mass shooting with a hostage-taking, similar to the Bataclan.
This exercise was very important in Lozère because, like any other French department, it is also “exposed to risks and susceptible to events like this,” said Valérie Fuscien, sub-prefect of Florac. “The objective was to see how to mobilize and coordinate the different services in Lozère to face this crisis.”
“Focusing on the terrorist threat”
In this context, the 13th Half-Brigade was the first responder and had the mission to “secure the area” so that the internal security service and its special units could focus on the terrorist threat after being called upon by the military. “The police acted first, and it was our commanders who intervened in the toughest moments,” summarized Adjutant Ombad. As (fake) victims, hospital staff were then taken care of by firefighters at different points in the building. The hostages were eventually released.
