Raymond Sasia, who would become De Gaulle's chief bodyguard, underwent training at the U.S. FBI Academy in the early 1960s and returned having absorbed FBI shooting techniques with the revolver. Sasia would establish a training academy to teach his version of FBI firearms usage: the Centre de Tir de Paris de la Police Nationale. He also determined what he considered the characteristics of the perfect police revolver, and the Police Nationale placed a special order with Smith & Wesson for Model 19 .357 Magnum revolvers with round butts and fixed sights.
For general issue, however, the Police Nationale preferred a domestically produced revolver specifically designed for its needs. As a result, in 1971, Manurhin was asked to develop a .357 magnum caliber revolver. By 1973, the revolver was in production of multiple versions of what would be designated the MR73, for the year of introduction. For general police issue, 2'/2-inch, 3-inch, and 4-inch fixed-sight versions were offered. The next year, a Sport model with 3-inch, 4-inch, 5%-inch, and 8-inch adjustable sights was introduced. The French counterterrorist unit of the Gendarmerie Nationale--GIGN (Groupe d'intervention de la Gendarmerie nationale)--had been using S&W revolvers, but these had failed to hold up to the unit's training regimen of firing 150 rounds of fullpower Norma .357 loads daily. Note, by the way, these loads were specially sealed for use underwater, as GIGN was trained for underwater approaches to a target. However, during GIGN testing, the MR73 fired 170,000 rounds with the same ammo and was still going strong when the testing was discontinued.
GIGN adopted what was termed the Gendarmerie Model of the MR73 in 3-inch, 5'/4-inch, and 8-inch barrel lengths. Each operator was issued a 3-inch and a 5 1/4-inch revolver, the shorter barrel for VIP protection or other plainclothes assignments and the 5 1/4-inch for hostage rescue/barricade/assault scenarios. It's been quite awhile, but I think one of the GIGN guys told me they carried the 3-inch revolvers off duty. The 8-inch revolvers were used for urban sniping, usually with a bipod mounted. Lack of magazine capacity in the revolvers was not considered a disadvantage. In fact, Christian Prouteau, the first commander of GIGN, felt it was an advantage, as operators learned to carefully place shots, rather than relying on putting a hail of fire down range.
A good example of the effective marksmanship of GIGN operators occurred on 26 December 1994, when GIGN assaulted Air France Flight 8969, which had been hijacked to Marseille by GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria) terrorists. Capt. Thierry Prungnaud, acting as point man during the assault, killed two terrorists and wounded a third using his MR73 5%-inch revolver. Other members of the assault team also carried their MR73s, though many carried a back-up Glock or SIG. I highly recommend the French film L'assaut, which portrays the GIGN operation quite accurately, including use of the MR73.
Other elite French police units would adopt the MR73 Gendarmerie Model as well, including GSPR (Groupe de securite de la presidence de la Republique), the French equivalent of the U.S. Secret Service Presidential Protection Detail, and RAID (Recherche, Assistance, Intervention, Dissuasion), the tactical unit of the Police Nationale. Austria's counterterrorist unit GEK Cobra, currently EKO Cobra, also used MR73 revolvers for many years until replacing them with Glock 17s. The first surplus MR73s to come into the United States were former GEK Cobra revolvers. I'll discuss those further later.
Many conventional French police units used standard fixed-sight 3-inch or 4-inch MR73s. These versions were also exported to police agencies in former French colonies in Africa, with a small number of adjustable-sight Gendarmerie Models going to officers or elite police units. A couple of years ago, a substantial number of these revolvers from Africa were imported into the United States. They showed a lot of bluing and grip wear and some needed gunsmithing, but they were still MR73s at a bargain price.
