French gun owners were handing over their weapons at police collection points across the country this week as part of a campaign to round up unlicensed firearms, often heirlooms lying in attics or forgotten at the back of cupboards.
Gun ownership in France is nowhere near as prevalent as in the United States, for instance, and gun crimes are relatively rare, but France is keen to limit the number of illegally owned firearms - as many as six million, authorities estimate.
