Le Français (pistol)
semi-automatic pistol
The Le Français pistol by Manufrance was produced from 1913 till 1969, in a variety of calibres. It was mainly sold in France, primarily to the greater public but also to some officers of the French Army (during the Phony War), and to the French municipal police. In 1912, Etienne Mimard the Head of Manufrance (La Manufacture Française d'Armes et de Cycles de Saint Etienne) started development. Mr. Mimard obtained the patent for the first model (Modèle E) on August 6, 1913, with n° 472.505. Sales started in 1914 with the name "Le Français".
Description
It is loaded through a tip up barrel and after the first shot loads from the magazine. However, the first shot can only be loaded into the barrel since there is no way to manually pull back the slide. The trigger is double action only. The pistol was the first to function solely in double action.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Le Français (pistol)” as semi-automatic pistol. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as semi-automatic pistol. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3222957. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1913, 1969, 1912 and 1914.
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This entry incorporates text from “Le Français (pistol)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.