[exprL]

The comment I responded to said that in addition to law enforcement, it's common for soldiers to patrol the streets, too, at times.

If I had to guess, I'd say they would prefer using the weapons they are accustomed to, which are probably not the same that LEO's use. Now I don't know much about the French military, but where I come from, I doubt the military even has appreciable amounts of semi-automatic rifles, as even the military police always use the same assault rifle everybody else does.

[antimagic]

Just for clarification's sake, the rifles in question carried by the French army are almost certainly automatic-capable, but like most military organisations around the world, I would expect them to be configured in semi-automatic mode, as you will run through a full clip of ammunition in two short bursts if you're in automatic mode, and that will mostly be a waste of ammunition, unless you find yourself confronted with a massed charge. It would be difficult to believe that they weren't configured in semi-automatic mode in a friendly-territory urban setting!

[bmelton]

Ah, my apologies. I read the comment backwards from what it was, so thanks for the clarification.

That said, I have no idea what the French Miliary use. I would guess a lot of H&K stuff. In the U.S. at least, swapping out from an M16 to an AR-15 is pretty natural, but I have no way of knowing what the transition is from or to in France.