The 25-year-old son of a Russian oligarch close to Vladimir Putin is pumping millions into a bid Wednesday to revive the once widely-read but now struggling daily paper France Soir.

As other powerful Russian oligarchs close in on the British press, Alexander Pugachev plans to increase sales of the moribund tabloid tenfold, from current circulation of a pitiful 22,000 to 200,000 copies.

With a fresh lay-out, a slew of newly hired high-profile editors and reporters, a giant 20-million-euro advertising campaign, and a slash in its price, Pugachev on Wednesday throws half a million copies on news-stands.

"Our point of equilibrium is between 150,000 and 200,000 copies," the tall trimly-built Russian told AFP in his office on the Champs Elysees avenue.

"I'm not a charity worker or a patron," added Pugachev, who after studying in the United States came to Paris where he took out French citizenship before last year taking on the launch of the new-look France Soir.

Originally launched in 1944, in the wake of France's liberation from Nazi occupation forces, France Soir in the '50s and '60s had a million readers and up to nine editions a day before all but sliding off the news-map in recent years.

The revival of France Soir follows ongoing talks in London by former KGB agent Alexander Lebedev to buy Britain's ailing Independent and Independent on Sunday.

He last year paid a nominal one pound to buy the struggling Standard from Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in a deal making him co-owner with his son Evgeny. It became a free paper in October.

Pugachev, whose discreet father Sergei is often dubbed "Vladimir Putin's banker" at home, has practically doubled the staff to 130, including 90 journalists, some of them household names in France.

The lowbrow 40-page tabloid will offer more pictures but stick to its sports, horse-racing and celebrity cover while adding a four-page liftout with recipes and TV programmes.

"Pictures are a priority and we will be looking for exclusive photos even if it costs," Pugachev, elegantly dressed, told AFP.

During the launch, backed up by a radio, TV and poster campaign, the daily will be sold at 50 euro cents, half its current price. It will later be sold at 70 euro cents.

Pugachev's first love is car racing. He recently raced in an Aston Martin in GT category but has switched to Formula 2 in a Renault.

Enamoured of Paris, where "everything is easy", he holidayed often in France with his parents, both in Paris and on the Riviera, where relatives have a home near Nice.

His father, who already owns French luxury grocer Hediard and was born in 1962, studied in Leningrad where he met Putin, in the 1990s a senior official at the city's town hall.

In 1992, Pugachev set up his own bank, Mejprombank, which quickly found favour with the Kremlin, running accounts for Boris Yeltsin's family shortly before his 1999 resignation, according to the Russian press.

Pugachev senior is said to be a religious man and a friend of the Russian Orthodox patriarch, with interests also in energy, the luxury sector and building.

In 2001 he purchased Moskovia, a Moscow television network.