FA-MAS Rifles in Vanuatu

Save for those well-known concentrations in Australia and New Zealand, very few bullpup rifles can be found in Oceania. When a bullpup rifle turns up in the region, it is almost invariably an F88 variant of some sort—and most militaries and police forces in the region that use the F88 do so sparingly, more often equipping their primary forces with an AR-15-type rifle. There is one strange and fascinating exception to this rule: Vanuatu, an archipelago country of some 83 islands that equips its paramilitary forces with the French FA-MAS bullpup rifle. This research note reviews the information available on Vanuatu’s FA-MAS rifle use, contextualising it in the light of the island nation’s past and future. With increasing competition in the Pacific between the West and China, and as the FA-MAS F1 continues to age, the future of Vanuatu’s French rifles is uncertain; but for now, their presence in the country is a small but interesting bullpup anomaly in Oceania.