Notes From Original OP:

I got to shoot one of these earlier this month. One of the first things I noticed was how ergonomically natural it felt to reload — the low capacity makes the magazine short, so you instinctively cup it from the bottom, which brings your hands right over the mag release. Because they insert straight in and out rather than rocking forward, you’re unlikely to fumble them. The clothes hanger-style pins on the mag also make it easy to clip extra mags to your pockets or belts.

…and yet, this also seems like one of the dumbest and most unnecessary design choices. Now magazines are will be much more complex to manufacture, there’s zero chance of compatibility with other rifles (even of the same caliber, as many MAS-49s were converted to 7.62 NATO), and they’re harder to store in regular pouches.

Indeed, no one will question the Frenchness of the engineers behind this.