Month: June 2019

Monaco has celebrated the birth of 50 young Monegasque residents at a special ceremony at the Town Hall.

Organised every year since 2015, the event is a celebration of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day and marks the important occasion of the birth of the first child.

A total of 50 births were registered in Monaco between 1st May 2018 and 30th April 2019, and the young children, together with their beaming parents, were welcomed at the Court of Honour by Mayor Georges Marsan and a host of councillors.

“The Town Hall is present alongside young parents from the birth of their child, and early childhood is more than ever at the heart of our priorities,” said Mayor Georges Marsan in his speech, adding that the reception was part of a policy put in place by the Communal Council for families. “In order to affirm this commitment, we wanted to dedicate a service to these actions: the Early Childhood and Family Service, led by Jean-Luc Magnani under the leadership of my dynamic assistant, Chloé Boscagli Leclercq. This Service is committed to responding to requests for crèche places and to ensuring that the government takes into account future needs in this area.”

The mayor then congratulated the happy parents before giving them a personalised gift, specially created for the occasion.

The 10th edition of operation ‘Monaco Plage Propre’ is currently underway and smokers are once again being asked to keep the Principality’s beaches clean and cigarette-butt free using reusable ashtrays.

In conjunction with the Monaco City Council, the Tourism and Congress Department (DTC) and the Monegasque Sanitation Society (SMA), the campaign kicked off on Saturday 15^th June with a host of initiatives springing up along the coast.

Self-service ashtrays are now available, free of charge, at three points of entry to the Larvotto beach, while pocket ashtrays disguised as key rings are available to the public in three distributors at the Nouvelle Digue Solarium.

They will also be handed out to the public around town throughout the summer by representatives of DTC and at the various tourist information points.

Once these stocks are exhausted, they will be replaced with a new format of ashtray pockets called ‘ashtray click clack’. All ashtrays are reusable or can be kept as souvenirs.

Information flyers entitled ‘Monaco Zero Mégot’, will be available in French and English and will also be distributed to the public throughout the summer to explain the impact of cigarette butts on the environment and encourage everyone’s participation in the fight against this form of pollution.

Meanwhile, the Princess Antoinette Park, a popular location for families, has just modified its rules and is now completely non-smoking. The Exotic Garden of Monaco will soon come on board with a non-smoking area.

To celebrate the 110th anniversary of the creation of the Corps, the 30th anniversary of the Fontvieille Rescue Centre, and the 25th anniversary of the Condamine Rescue Centre, Monaco’s firefighters are organising an open day on Sunday 23^rd June.

The two barracks will be open to the public between 10am and 6pm, also in celebration of World Day for Civil Protection and its 2019 theme: ‘The protection of our children’.

The fun event will feature animations for the kids and workshops for the wider public, who will have the opportunity to witness dynamic rescue manoeuvres and demonstrations to showcase the many facets of the trade.

There will also be places of relaxation, and souvenirs and beverages for sale.

In addition to discovery, it is hoped that the day will encourage young people to pursue a career in the Corps.

Monegasque passengers will be among the first in the world to experience autonomous buses. The government will be introducing free, self-driving, electric busses on the Rock this summer, as Monaco continues its clean, green transition into the future.

The introduction of the first autonomous electric shuttle buses is part of Monaco’s Commitment to the ‘Smart Principality’ scheme, and was developed by the #ExtendedMonaco program.

From 3rd July to 8th September, tourists and residents will have access to the service which will operate on a loop of about one kilometre every 15 minutes. It will include four stops: Place du Palais Princier, the Cathedral, the Oceanographic Museum and Place de la Visitation.

With a seating capacity of 15 passengers including 11 seats, the shuttle will be operated by the Monaco bus company in partnership with the Keolis transport group, which has undertaken around 30 shuttle experiments throughout the world including Paris, Lyon, London and Las Vegas. It has been manufactured by French company Navya.

According to the government, the safety of travelers will be at the heart of this summer experience, with the presence of a CAM operator who can at any time regain control of the vehicle by switching to manual navigation mode.

On 25th June an information session will be held in front of the Oceanographic Museum between 12pm and 2pm for people to become acquainted with this new technology.

If successful, a second bus could be operational in the Larvotto district by autumn.

Photo: © Direction de la Communication – Charly gallo

Honorary President Prince Albert II of Monaco has officially opened the 59th Monte-Carlo Television Festival in front of a star-studded, capacity audience at the Grimaldi Forum. Following a glamorous Red Carpet featuring a glittering line-up of acting and creative talent from around the world, the Golden Nymph fiction and news juries were presented on stage.

This year’s fiction jury includes Ricky Whittle (Jury President), Pedro Alonso, Anne Kolbjornsen, Gisella Marengo, Gideon Raff and Ola Rapace, and the news jury is comprised of Rory Kennedy (Jury President), John Irvine, Ghislaine Ottenheimer, Paul Refsdal, Luca Rosini and Masaru Zenke.

In celebration of what is today’s golden age of global television, the 59th Opening Ceremony concluded with the French Premiere screening of the first episode of L.A.’s Finest, in the presence of actresses and executive producers Gabrielle Union (Bad Boys II), who plays Sydney Burnett and Jessica Alba (Sin City), who plays Nancy McKenna.

“Boundless is probably an accurate way to describe today’s increase of exceptional programs being created worldwide,” Prince Albert told the audience in his opening speech. “From remarkable series to thought-provoking documentaries and insightful news reports from remote territories, each one set to educate, enlighten and to entertain us.”

“The gap between television and cinema is definitely closing in these exciting times in the global content business and the Festival’s outstanding line-up of talent certainly reflects this,” added Laurent Puons, CEO of the Monte-Carlo Television Festival. “We are so thrilled to have secured the French Premiere of L.A.’s Finest produced by Jerry Bruckheimer Television and 2.0 Entertainment in association with Sony Pictures Television, and I am delighted to welcome the series’ stars, Gabrielle Union and Jessica Alba to Monte-Carlo.”

In presenting the French premier of their action series, Alba said: “You typically don’t get to see two women as stars of this genre – usually you get to see men – and the women typically service the male story but in ours the story revolves around us, and I think it’s refreshing and it’s different and it’s cool,” a statement that was greeted  by warm applause from the Monégasque audience.

Meanwhile, Union said she greatly enjoyed the series’ action scenes. “We have a blast. Being able to kick butt, be funny, be sexy, be mysterious… they usually reserve that just for men but, listen, when you don’t service literally half of the population of the world you do yourself a disservice. Not only are you a bad person, you are a bad businessperson. So we are here to be amazing actors, great business-women and equal opportunities entertainers.”

Other celebrities attending the ceremony included Ricky Whittle, star of American Gods, Lindsey Morgan and Richard Harmon, the stars of The 100, Instinct star Alan Cumming, and Sharon Case, Amelia Heinle and Camryn Grimes from The Young and the Restless.

The Monte-Carlo Television Festival has established itself as one of the industry’s foremost events, bringing together the biggest names in television. This year, for the 59th edition, a brand new initiative reserved exclusively to TV industry professionals has been launched, the ‘Pass Pro’ to promote and optimise contacts during the event, making the most of the possibilities offered by the Festival.

The hugely popular Splash Party is back for a fourth edition and it will take place this Wednesday 19th June, marking the approach of the summer holidays.

From 2pm to 6pm, young people aged from 12 to 17 years, in school or residing in Monaco,   will be able to enjoy the swimming pool of the Rainier III Nautical Stadium with giant inflatable structures, musical atmosphere with DJ, babyfoots and other games. There will also be unlimited nono-acloholic which is included in the price of entry.

The concept of the Splash Party was actually derived from the students themselves and it has been a real success. So let’s celebrate the approach of summer and the end of classes with friends and water games!

The price is 20€ for students and residents in the Principality, and 25€ for an accompanying person from outside of Monaco.