All the news that's kid friendly

During an hour-long session, they choose which news stories will appear in the next edition. Adult journalists write and edit the stories, but the children are always the ones who pick what to publish.

"We always go with what the children want," says Olivier Gasselin, deputy editor in chief. "There are no vetoes."

François, age 10, woke up at 4:30 this morning in his home in central France to attend the editorial meeting in Paris. He thinks getting kids to decide the editorial agenda is a great idea. "If it was [adults] who chose, it wouldn't be the same."

The team of journalists sits around a table in the morning editorial meeting with the children. A wide sample of stories has been selected by the journalists beforehand. The children then choose which ones they prefer or think are most important - or funny, depending on the section in which the stories will appear.

The children are there for only three hours, leaving the paper by noon.

For grown-up journalists, going with a 10-year-old's choice of news isn't always easy.

"One day there was a very important European Union election, but there was also this story about a bear in a zoo," remembers Mr. Mignon. "The children chose to lead with the story about the bear! The journalists found it extremely difficult to go with that choice, but they did."

More than 200,000 copies of Mon Quotidien and its sister publications make their way into French households and schools daily. The newspapers are sold through subscriptions only and, at under 70 cents a copy, the cost is half the price of a national newspaper in France.

Kids, it turns out, aren't the only ones to keep an eye out for their paper in the post. According to Dufour, many parents also read it - including some who do not subscribe to any other paper.

As most other national dailies in France lose readers in droves, Play Bac Presse is a welcome success story. Competition from the Internet, free-sheets, and an aging readership have plunged the industry into one of the worst crises in recent history.

But as others struggle to keep afloat, Mon Quotidien and its sister publications are turning a modest profit of about $1.3 million annually.

It's just as well for Play Bac Presse, which has many more projects in store. The group is in the final stages of testing a US version of Mon Quotidien with The Miami Herald and has reached an accord with the Associated Press to syndicate the newspaper's formula.

"We have found that the older you get, the less you read. So we want to target the younger generation to get them to read later," says Mignon, who is in charge of the US project. "Investing in kids is worth it."

Play Bac Presse has something to say about that.

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