PARIS, Dec 23: US magazine Newsweek says that on Jan 5 it will publish its first edition ever written entirely in French.

It will take the form of a special French edition of an issue which takes a look at the major questions that the world will have to face in 2004, with its content described as being “the fruit of several years of collaboration between Newsweek and the World Economic Forum.

Sources at Newsweekwould not say whether the all-French issue will be the first of a permanent French-language edition of the magazine, but implied that if the special issue sells well, the US newsweekly may want to regularly issue a French-language version.