A magnetoresistive memory element including a trapped magnetic region and a free magnetic region separated by a barrier layer. The free magnetic region comprises a stacking of at least two antiferromagnetically-coupled ferromagnetic layers, a layer magnetic moment vector being associated with each layer, the resulting magnetic moment vector, equal to the sum of the layer magnetic moment vectors, having an amplitude smaller than at least 40% of the amplitude of the layer magnetic moment vector of maximum amplitude. The anisotropy field and/or the demagnetizing field tensor is not identical for the at least two ferromagnetic layers, whereby the angular deviations of the layer magnetic moment vectors are different at the time of the application of an external magnetic field, which enables at least two methods for directly writing into the memory element, as well as its initialization.