Got a news item from our tip line today that I'm confirming but I thought I would bring it to your attention.
Seems that the French are potentially jumping on the SCAR bandwagon with a limited deployment of 10 SCARs to its contingent in Afghanistan and Sudan. Our tipster pointed us to a French blog called The Mammoth that said the French National Police officers stationed in Kabul and Khartum, Sudan, will get the 7.62mm Mk-17s. It seems that the forward deployed paramilitary police troops are also tinkering with the H&K 417 "for additional firepower."
The blog also said that the national police is looking for a replacement for the G36 (seems there's something lost in my translation -- may be looking to replace the MiniMi or both MiniMi and G36 with one gun) and that both the above weapons are contenders.
A word of caution: I threw the blog URL into Google Translator to get the English version. I speak a little French and was able to somewhat cross check the translation, but any of our foreign readers out there with better French skills than mine can dive into the comments and set my interpretation straight.
-- Christian
