One nation that reconfigured a previously used bolt-action service rifle to meet the needs of precision marksmen was France, and the result was the FRF2 sniper rifle.

Conceived during the Cold War and after thirty years of service, the French are beginning to phase out the FR F2 bolt-action sniper rifle, with the surplus rifles available for sale from Navy Arms.

The 49/56 would have been fine weapon for World War II, but by the 1960s it was woefully outgunned by the AK-47. The AK was both lighter and used a much larger magazine than the French rifle.

The Fusil d’Assaut de la Manufacture d’Armes de Saint-Étienne, or FAMAS assault rifle replaced antiquated rifles and submachine guns in French service with a fully modern weapon.

Nicknamed “Le Clairon” (The Bugle) for its distinct shape, the FAMAS rifle has become a symbol of French military innovation ...

The French National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN) has ordered a new standard issue weapon.. It has selected the Bren 2 assault rifle from Czech company CZ.The company told Shephard at the ...

Heckler & Koch's 5.56mm 416 F assault rifle is to become the French military's standard individual weapon, replacing the domestically produced FAMAS rifle.

A French rifle tapped to be handed over to the Ukrainian military for sniper work as part of a $36 million Paris-Kyiv arms deal is inferior to weapons already in use by Armed Forces of Ukraine shooter ...

The French armament procurement agency, the DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement) has taken delivery of a first batch of new rifles. The first tranche of HK416F 5.56x45mm assault rifles is intended ...

This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does ...