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LISA: The newspaper business is in trouble. Even when big news happens, such as in Gaza and Israel right now, readership is going down, ad revenue is going down, and costs are going up. It's a lethal formula for print journalism, and not just here in the United States. France's newspaper industry is also struggling to cope in the digital age. But as Anita Elash reports, French newspapers have more to worry about than your average U.S. Daily does.

ANITA: There are nearly a thousand publications to choose from at this tiny newsstand in Paris's middle class 14th arrondissement, everything from big name dailies like Le Monde and Le Figaro, to obscure titles on art and religious history. It should be a newspaper vendor's paradise, but Igor Polo, who has managed this stand for 12 years, says business has never been worse.

IGOR: I had two nearby competitors that are not here anymore. So you have to realize that if I'm managing to survive, it's because the others disappeared.

ANITA: That pretty much sums up the way things have been going in the French daily newspaper business as a whole. Bertrand Pecquerie is Director of the Paris-based World Editors Forum.

BERTRAND: Every year, national dailies are losing money. And it cannot continue like that, because the banks don't want to pay any longer. So it will be maybe a carnage in the French newspaper industry in the upcoming years.

ANITA: Like many industries in France, newspapers are up against a dizzying array of rules and regulations. One dates back a century and gives a single trade union a monopoly for printing and distribution. Another was passed just after World War II in reaction to a steady diet of Nazi propaganda. It guarantees French publishers newsstand space right across the country. And it's why vendors like Polo have so many titles. It also forces bigger papers to subsidize their smaller competitors distribution costs. Pecquerie says those rules together have pushed the cost of newspaper production and distribution higher than in any other European country.

BERTRAND: In those two cases, French newspapers are paying 10 to 15 percent more than in Germany and in Spain or in the UK.

ANITA: Another problem facing dailies here is the relative scarcity of French newspaper readers. Just half as many French read newspapers as British or Germans. They started switching over to television in the late 1960s. Historian Patrick Evaneaux says it's because much of the French press relies on government subsidies, so it doesn't dare to give readers the information they want. He says state secrets are still very well guarded in France and the press doesn't fulfill its role as a watchdog. “For example,” he says, “the press knew that former President Francois Miteron had an illegitimate daughter, but never wrote anything about it.” Evaneaux says it's likely too late for French newspapers to win readers back. Other analysts say French dailies can survive only if the government does away with regulations, and if several titles merge. For The World, I'm Anita Elash, in Paris.

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