Here in the US some highschools and many college's still have a rifle or skeet club. I think more schools should teach gun saftey and how to properly respect firearms.

I am from the UK and my senior school (1975-1979) had a cadet unit (CCF) based in it. We had an armoury and on the top floor we had a couple of class rooms with folding walls so we could shoot up to 30m. We had .22 lr converted Lee Enfield's and some regular .22lr bolt action rifles. I actually think it was a great idea and promoted discipline and responsibility.

I teach highschool in US. Ive been trying to start a rifle and skeet club for years. Much enthusiasm. Much resistance.

That's a loooooong barrel for a cartridge without any appreciable amount powder. I wonder how much velocity the bullets lose due to friction. Edit, never trust anything gun related that says it's "self cleaning".

At boarding school in Yorkshire we had 22lr Anschutz single-shot target rifles for the rifle club, and manually-operated SA80s for the CCF.

My father was in ROTC in high school and they used to shoot .22 rifles in the basement.

Back when i was an army cadet at the age of 14 (4th Royal Corps of Transport) in my home city of Liverpool, we trained with .303 Enfileds and the L1A1 7.62mm SLR rifles for drill/parade and range shooting. Also had the thrill and pleasure of firing the .303 Bren and the 9mm Sterling SMG. Then when i served in the Royal Air Force at the age of 18 until discharged on medical grounds i again trained and used the L1A1 SLR then the piece of crap 5.56mm SA80 when they fazed out the SLR.

I grew up in France, entering elementary school in the fall of 1963. We had a really traditionalist, old-fashioned teacher who insisted on teaching us the Geography of France and the colonies, even though the colonial empire was already gone for good. She also taught us many subjects that were actual life skills in her "leçons de choses", which were similar in orientation to what my kids in Israel had to endure in the first decade of this Century under the title of "Sciences". I was riveted! She talked about absolutely everything, including how firearms work. I confess I liked her class on trains and locomotives a lot better because of the cool illustrations! As a pre-teen, I did shoot every possible Flobert toy at the fun fair, including a few really cool semi-autos and a Margolin pistol that might have been in .22 short, because this was the only way that my Dad could transmit, at great expense, a little bit of that side of his wisdom, but really, it was too easy!
To the point: I have now reached a ripe old age, and I had never heard about this French school firearms instruction thing! So a big thank you M'sieur BOTR, for making me incrementally less ignorant!

My late mother rip knew a woman from French Algeria who was trained with one of these in school.

Thank you for addressing this (today) very little-known topic.
I also own a "La Préférée" but have never shot it for lack of appropriate ammo.

Shooting was part of the official curriculum in France until 1939.
To put this in perspective, there were practically no gun laws in France until that date too, and shooting and gun ownership and also apparently carry were very popular.
The Flobert cartridge was also used for living-room shooting at the time - and no, I'm not making this up.

It’s a good thing my partner and I are able to be together while doing our own things cus I’m never not watching a new video of The Chaps esoterica.

Here in Australia when I was going to high school in the 70’s & early 80’s school cadets still existed in govt high schools, but over time teachers with military or militia experiance became too thin on the ground, with the  compulsory self defence militia (they were not allowed to be deployed abroad outside of Australia territories) ending around 63 or something. Although they still exist in the poncy private schools

Those were some funky rifles

When I was in university I was an Officer Cadet in the RCAF.  Our mess was at McGill University and we used the McGill indoor rifle range.  We used No.4 rifles that were chambered in .22.  The ammunition was made in the same year I was born - 1944.  The guns were taken away from us after the FLQ raided an armory in Montreal and walked off with a bunch of FNs.  If the FNs were ever recovered I never heard about it.

Very cool that you are using a Swiss Army blanket! :-)

An interesting little rifle, and given the fouling in the bore you discovered, it shot pretty well. Can you imagine letting kids nowadays loose with one of those (or even twenty lol) in the school playground shooting range? It don't bear thinking about!

Thank you for sharing  ! I actually have one of these in my collection  and I knew little of it before watching your content.

Fascinating bit of history.

That's amazing. Here in Chile i went to a Swiss school and we had a 10m air rifle range, and even that was considered an oddity. I think they do archery now.

I honestly don't see the problem. In the US this training would be similar, to our current Junior Reserved Officer Training Corps. Sound like the French version was more intensive but exercise is never bad and firearms training at an early age makes for safer kids.