Month: September 2016

Nicolas Sarkozy should face trial along with aides on charges that his unsuccessful re-election campaign four years ago received illegal funding, French prosecutors reportedly recommended on Monday.
The move is a major blow to the former French president’s hopes to run for re-election next year just days after he announced his decision to join the race, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reports.
Mr Sarkozy, whose book, “All for France”, released end of August, topped the Best Sellers List after selling 32,000 copies within the first three days, was already under formal investigation in the affair, and prosecutors feel there is sufficient evidence against him and 13 other party members, for the case to go to trial. Investigating magistrates now have one month to make the final decision on whether the case should come to court, meaning their ruling could come just days before presidential primaries of Mr Sarkozy’s Republicans party, held on November 20 and 27.
The case initially centred on allegations that false bills via an events company called Bygmalion amounting to €18 million were used to mask the fact that Mr Sarkozy’s party – then called the UMP – had massively surpassed campaign spending limits in 2012. The inquiry then widened last October to include another €13.5 million. Illegal party funding carries a maximum prison sentence of a year and a €3750 fine.
In France, campaign spending limits for the 2012 presidential election were €22.5million, a figure his party is accused of vastly surpassing.

President Hollande will render homage to “all the victims of terrorism” on September 19 at les Invalides in Paris, the Secretary of State charged with helping victims and their families, Juliette Méadel, has announced in Nice.
She added that it is absolutely necessary to honour the victims, which is a global act of homage and remembrance. The chosen date marks an atrocity in 1989, when a French DC-10 of the UTA airline exploded in mid-air on a flight from Brazzaville to Paris, killing 170 people, including 54 French nationals.
Ms Méadel was in Nice to meet families of the 86 victims of the attack on the Promenade des Anglais on July 14.
Some 85 people remain in hospital since Bastille Day.

The Monaco Yacht Club and Elton John joined forces at the weekend for a concert promoting the Ferretti Group ahead of the Cannes Yachting Festival that starts on Tuesday, September 6, and the Monaco Yacht Show, the world’s number-one super yacht showcase, which runs from September 28 to October 1.
The concert, a co-production between Ferretti Group and the Yacht Club de Monaco, opened the Private Preview weekend, the unmissable event during which Ferretti Group presented its whole fleet, including six world première models, effectively kicking-off the two big luxury yacht meetings.

The “Blue Wonderful” event, which took place in the extraordinary setting of the YCM Marina surrounded by 30 yachts, representing all brands of the Ferretti Group, featured a private concert by Sir Elton John.
Sir Elton John entertained international guests with his solo piano concert performing his most celebrated songs including “Candle in the Wind”, “Rocket Man”, “Daniel”, “Bennie and the Jets”, “Crocodile Rock”, “Circle of Life”, “Your Song” and some hits of his last album “Wonderful Crazy Night” amongst which the opening song “Blue Wonderful”.
After an hour and a half of playing, the British star received rapturous applause from the 1,000-plus guests assembled on Quai Louis II and from the terraces of the Yacht Club, a building designed and built by his compatriot, Sir Norman Foster. He left the stage for the sea aboard his Riva, to a resounding salute as all the yachts in the Yacht Club’s Marina sounded their horns, a fitting tribute for someone who is passionate about yachts.
Ferretti Group showcased six world premières: Ferretti Yachts 850, Ferretti Yachts 450, Pershing 5X, Rivamare, 76’ Bahamas and Custom Line Navetta 37.
Alberto Galassi, Ferretti Group Chief Executive Officer, said: “Extraordinary music and the most beautiful boats on earth together for a magic event, thanks to a unique legend of music that opened an amazing weekend filled with many previews. Sir Elton John’s concert was an incredible experience, a breath-taking night that we offered to our clients while awaiting them to visit us again during the upcoming yachting festivals in Cannes, Monaco and Fort Lauderdale.”
The Yacht Club de de Monaco General Secretary, Bernard d’Alessandri, was particularly delighted: “In line with our mission to bring life to the harbour and offer moorings for superyacht owners, it has been a great pleasure working with a prestigious company like the Ferretti Group and to welcome owners from all over the world for this unique event.
Through our La Belle Classe label, the Yacht Club and the Principality in general, is establishing itself as an inimitable destination for international Yachting.” (Source: Monaco Yacht Club)

A small earthquake with an epicentre 28 kilometres north of Monaco on Saturday evening caused a few dishes to rattle in Nice and the Principality, but no damage. The quake measured 3.8 on the Richter scale, according to the European Mediterranean seismological centre.
Meanwhile, satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo has unleashed a storm of criticism on social media for a cartoon depicting Italian earthquake victims as pasta dishes.
The cartoon, which features in its current issue, refers to the town of Amatrice, one of the areas hardest hit by the 6.2 magnitude earthquake eleven days ago. Amatrice is home to spaghetti all’amatriciana, a dish with ingredients including tomato sauce, and guanciale ham.
The offending image shows an injured man and a woman standing next to a pile of rubble from which feet can be seen. Each of the standing figures has been named after a pasta dish.
The bandaged man is shown under the words penne tomato sauce, a woman with burns is depicted as penne gratin, and bodies lying beneath layers of rubble as lasagne all beneath the heading “Earthquake Italian style”.
The cartoon, making the rounds on social media, has attracted huge criticism globally and in Italy it has made the pages of Italian national newspapers La Stampa and Courier della Serra.

MonacoUSA pulled out all the stops Saturday to convert the Star Deck into a Fabulous Forties dinner cabaret. And guests did their part by coming in costume.
Some 100 Monaco residents, including Top Marques Steven Saltzman and Susan Feaster, Chairman of the U.S. Monaco Celebrity Golf Cup, and friends of Monaco came out to give their support to the Liberation of the Principality, while more than 50 others showed up at the sold-out show hoping to wiggle their way in. But it was standing room only.
In honouring the Forties (and thanks to a computer glitch), the hardworking Stars’n’Bars staff took dinner orders the old-fashioned way, by hand.
“Seventy-two years ago Monaco was liberated,” Annette Anderson, in full sailor attire, addressed the crowd before introducing the Lib Day Darlings. “It was not a just celebration of the end of war, but for freedom and expression, and the gift of music.”
The Lib Day Darlings, the local singing trio of Alicia Sedgwick, Colette Marx-Nielsen and Louise Harrison, West End Singers Paul Spicer and Matt Firth and crooners, Mike Lorimer and Carl Henry entertained the packed room so engagingly that no one seemed notice the slight earthquake that hit Monaco last night.
Although Allied forces landed in Draguignan August 15, 1944, it would be more than two weeks later that Monaco would be liberated. During those 19 days, Allied aircraft pounded the Riviera coastline, Monaco included. Property was destroyed and supplies were non-existent.
Beausoleil was bombed in the early hours of August 23 and the following day armoured convoys were seen retreating from Monaco. But there was much confusion. The Germans had indeed evacuated Paris on August 25, but on August 26, fourteen German ships anchored in the territorial waters of Monaco raised bomb fears about an overnight bombing. The following day when seven aircraft dropped bombs causing casualties.
The last of the German infantry retreated from the area on August 30 but still violent warship gunfire ensued. On the night of September 2, there was a terrifying storm and naval guns were fired on the Mont Agel and La Turbie. The Francs Tireurs Partisans, the 509th Para, along with gunfire from the Edgar Quinet, forced the enemy to finally surrender.
The morning of September 3, France Forces of the Interior (FFI) took over the streets of Monaco and Beausoleil making way for the Americans’ arrival. At 2:01 p.m. cheering crowds gathered at place de la Crémaillère. Monaco was at last free.