A lower price (0.50 Euros), new design, new team, and a huge investment – that is France-Soir's ambitious way of breathing new life into this French national newspaper that in its golden years was among the most circulated newspaper in Europe.
In 1955, France-Soir reached 1.5 million paid readers, all paid copies. And 
despite bottoming out at a low circulation of 23,000 copies today, French people still consider France-Soir among the list of national newspaper titles. Its new owner (since April 2009 through the financial fund Sablon International), Alexandre Pugachev (24), the son of a Russian billionaire, is investing some 20 million Euros in a huge ad campaign to promote the launch of the new France-Soir that came out today.
His objectives are to quickly reach a circulation of 150,000 copies and walk in the historical walled garden of Le Parisien-Aujourd’hui (Amaury group) in the tabloid press segment (though tabloid is a very soft concept in the French media landscape compared to other countries).
The new version (and its new website) is betting on well-known journalists and an editorial team guided by former editorial managers of Le Parisien: Christian de Villeneuve, Gilles Verdez (deputy editor in chief) and Dominique de Montvallon (head of political service) to recapture credibility lost in decades of chaotic ownership changes.
