In France, cancer is the second leading cause of death among children under the age of 15, after unintentional accidents. The specific characteristics of childhood cancers led to the creation of pediatric registries, beginning in the 1980s, in five French regions: Lorraine (1983), Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Corsica (1984), Auvergne and Limousin (1986 and 1994), Rhône-Alpes (1987), Brittany (1991), as well as in the Val-de-Marne department (1990), thus covering 32% of the French population aged 0 to 14. The objective of this study is to examine the incidence and distribution by histological type of childhood cancers in France based on data collected by these six registries for the period 1990–1999. (Introduction)