French “Mouse Guns”

In the reports of the terrible events this past week in France, we’ve seen the Police Nationale armed with carbines that for all intents and purposes are Ruger Mini-14s.

From Forgottenweapons.com

Yes but not quite.

As these two stories make clear, this carbine is the Mousqueton A.M.D. in 5.56. Mousqeton is French for carbine. The carbine was made in France under contract from Ruger.

There is quite a bit of history about the Mousqueton in this Shooting Illustrated story by Martin Morgan including which agencies have used it.

Ian at Forgotten Weapons goes more into the mechanical details of the Mousqueton in this post.