The Amaury group, responsible for both Le Parisien and L'Equipe, has given its publications a face life this week, with all 48 pages of the former appearing in colour for the first time on Tuesday, and divided into five new sections: Fact of the day, News, Local News, Sports and Leisure.

L'Equipe is set to integrate three new pages into its design, the first appearing today, the second in Thursday's edition and the third in Friday's, as a response to reader surveys. From March the publication will introduce a motoring section, which will appear every Monday- intended to deal with the production of cars as opposed to buying and selling.

Today's page "L'Equipe Inside" will report on a significant sports professional, event or controversy within the industry. Thursday's page "L'Equipe Discovered" will report on an unknown sport or sports pro, and finally Friday's page "L'Equipe Weekend" will aim to be more light-hearted, reporting an amusing story, with "a very magazine feel" says François Morinière, Director General of the paper. The new pages are intended to give readers "a break in their reading to digest all the information in the paper," says Fabrice Jouhaud, Editorial Director.

No doubt this "breathing space" is intended to attract a younger audience, which the publication so desperately needs if it is to safeguard its survival: France's most read newspaper ended the year with a circulation - 2,6 % down across the country. A cost-cutting plan was implemented in June, with the aim of saving the title between 6 and 8 million euros a year.

L'Express too has long been weighing up its future plans, with its new look getting the thumbs up at the World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad, India, in December. From the first week of February, the French daily will begin publication in its new format, again in response to reader surveys.

The main change to the title will be its structure: The paper will be divided into three distinct sections, with the first fifteen pages dedicated to serious and extensive coverage of national, local and international news and sport of the last 48 hours. The second section will report lifestyle articles, dealing with culture, gadgets, health, family life and fashion. According to the Head of L'Express' editorial team, Ariane Cavalot de l'Estrac, the section aims to " talk about you, your free time, and the things you like doing, the things you like eating and the things you want to do."

The third and final section goes by the name of "ID" and looks to help the reader better understand and therefore form an opinion on current affairs, in the vein of L'Equipe's "breathing space". Once a week, this final section will appear entirely in English in response to the fact that "our readers want to learn, to become more sophisticated and master the English language", says de l'Estrac.

All three redesigns are no doubt symptomatic of tough times for the newspaper industry, all aforementioned publications suffering at the hands of the economic crisis and dramatic advertising downturn, as print publishers grapple with the question of how to keep their readership at a time when so much news is available online. Whether the papers will succeed must remain to be seen, but the key no doubt, lies in innovation, redesign and listening to what the reader wants - something these three French dailies have demonstrated they are set about doing.

Sources: lexpress.mu, lefigaro.fr, cbnews.fr