Newspapers try to build readership by giving free subscriptions to the kids

French films usually include at least one scene of serious-looking, chain-smoking café patrons reading the newspaper. But that shot is make-believe: The newspaper industry, as troubled as it is in the U.S., is dying in the land of Sartre and Voltaire, where the per-capita circulation is about half that of papers in Germany and Britain, according to The New York Times.

With readership falling off a cliff, the government is trying to do something about it. The plan: Starting Friday, some 200,000 citizens between 18 and 24 can get a one-year free subscription to a newspaper of their choice.