Operational Use
The FM 24/29 was the standard squad-level automatic weapon of the French infantry and cavalry at the start of World War II. After the French surrender in World War II, the Germans captured large quantities of this weapon, which they used operationally until the end of the war.
From 1943 on, as the French army was re-equipped and re-organized in North Africa with Allied support, the FM 24/29 was kept in service, as French troops considered it superior to the Browning Automatic Rifle.
The FM 24/29 was the workhorse in the First Indochina War and served in the armed forces until after the end of the war in Algeria. It was replaced by the AA-52 general-purpose machine gun in the 1960s, but it was still in use with National Gendarmerie regional brigades until 2000-2006.
Read more about this topic: FM 24/29 Light Machine Gun