Barrier ribs are disposed on a back substrate so as to separate main discharge cells formed of a display electrode pair and a data electrode which face each other and priming discharge cells formed of a clearance between two adjacent scan electrodes. The top parts of the barrier ribs are formed so as to abut on a front substrate. In a driving method, in an odd-numbered line writing time period, scan pulse Va is sequentially applied to odd-numbered scan electrode SC.sub.p and voltage Vq is applied to even-numbered scan electrode SC.sub.p+1 to cause priming discharge between scan electrode SC.sub.p+1 and odd-numbered scan electrode SC.sub.p. In an even-numbered line writing time period, scan pulse Va is sequentially applied to even-numbered scan electrode SC.sub.p+1 and voltage Vq is applied to odd-numbered scan electrode SC.sub.p to cause priming discharge between scan electrode SC.sub.p and even-numbered scan electrode SC.sub.p+1.