I'd like to hear from our French resident member on this topic.
Meh. That's really a non-event.
It's the same thing in the US when some cities offer to "buy back" (not that they sold them in the first place) guns to gem them "off the streets".
They only collect junk guns that nobody used in the first place.
They don't get guns from gang members.
It has zero effect on so-called "gun crime".
That program is really for people who inherited firearms, or found them.
If they are not registered they can't legally keep them.
Of course the state is not telling those people that they could register those weapons if they wanted.
If you look at pictures of the guns collected in the last few days it's only old rusty semi-auto, or lever action, hunting rifles.
It's not the "hot stuff" illegally owned by many French citizens.
One guy was recently arrested for having several illegal guns.
That what they found:
Mostly full-auto modern military style weapons.
Most of those you can't even legally own in France (they would be NFA items in the US).
Heck some you can't even legally own it in the US either.
People who have access to that kind of firepower are not giving away their guns.
When people hear that guns have been taken off the streets they think about the last two pictures.
They don't think about a rusty shotgun that spent 20 years in a barn.
It's all about smoke and mirrors.