A Charles III College student and two of his family members have tested positive for Covid-19, prompting a trace and test operation in Monaco.
The Monaco government revealed on Thursday 2nd July that one of the Principality’s young residents had returned a positive test for Covid-19 after being infected by a member of his family who had returned from a trip outside of Europe.
Another member of the same family has also since tested positive.
The student, in 6ème at the Charles III College, and affected members of his family are self-quarantined in their home under the care of the Home Monitoring Centre.
The Health Department is now in the process of contacting and testing 11 classmates and five teachers who have been in contact with the student, although he is believed to have posed a “negligible risk” of contaminating others given the strict hygiene measures in play at the school, including the wearing of masks and social distancing.
“The risk of contamination is therefore very low,” said the government in a statement.
The Palace has released a gorgeous family portrait of Prince Albert, Princess Charlene and the twins to mark the couple’s 9th wedding anniversary this week.
The Sovereign Prince of Monaco wed his beautiful South African bride on 1st and 2nd July 2011 in a series of lavish celebrations attended by celebrities, sporting legends, royalty and dignitaries.
Prince Albert met Charlene Wittstock, a former Olympic swimmer, when she was presiding over a swimming meet in Monaco and the couple made their first public appearance together in 2006. Four years later, on 23rd June 2010, they announced their engagement, much to the delight of the population of Monaco. Photo: Prince’s Palace via Getty Images
A two-day public holiday was declared for the nuptials and festivities kicked off on 30th June with a concert by the Eagles at the Stade Louis II, followed by a civil ceremony on Friday 1st July in the Throne Room of the Prince’s Palace.
With the signing of the marriage register, Charlene Wittstock received her formal title of Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco. Afterwards, a buffet was served in the Palace Square for guests, prepared by chefs from Monaco and South Africa and headed by three-Michelin starred chef Alain Ducasse.
Meanwhile, the people of Monaco were treated to a free concert with fireworks and a laser show at Port Hercule. Photo: Prince’s Palace via Getty Images
The religious ceremony was held the following day on 1st July in the courtyard of the Palace; outside in the square guests followed the ceremony on giant screens, while screens were also set up throughout the Principality. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Princess Charlene looked stunning in her Giorgio Armani gown, while the young bridesmaids wore traditional dresses designed by Princess Caroline and Jean-Christophe Maillot, the director of the Ballets de Monte Carlo.
The dinner reception was hosted on the terraces of the Opera de Monte-Carlo followed by fireworks and a concert by the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra with performers including Andrea Bocelli. Photo by Prince’s Palace via Getty Images
The couple’s children, Hereditary Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella, were born on 10th December 2014.
The Energy Transition team has announced a partnership with France’s Efficacity Research and Development Institute to optimise its energy strategy and accelerate Monaco’s low carbon transition.
The Efficacity Research and Development Institute was founded in 2014 in conjunction with the French government and has dedicated itself to helping cities along the path of energy transitions. Bringing together roughly 30 entities from both the public and private sectors in industry and academia, more than 100 researchers and experts are working together to develop and implement cutting edge ways to help cities make their energy transitions.
“The partnership between the Mission for the Energy Transition (MTE) and Efficacity will start with the Fontvieille district but is intended to continue over several years in order to deploy the method and the tool in other districts of the Principality,” said Annabelle Jaeger-Seydoux, Director of MTE. “This support will allow the Principality to identify the best avenues and the best projects to carry out to achieve the ambitious objectives it has set itself. We will be able to tell you more in autumn.”
Monaco will have a personalised scenario, created with diagnostics and models, to integrate the plan into action. This will be done through a series of meetings and workshops with key players in the Principality. The institute’s experts will also make recommendations for certain neighbourhoods based on specific needs and requirements to ease the process and make for a smoother transition.
Minister of Infrastructure, the Environment and Town Planning Marie-Pierre Gramaglia has welcomed the move, saying: “I am delighted with this research and development partnership which will help accelerate the energy transition of the territory. It will provide the MTE with tools that will help to further understand the energy challenges of our territory. An approach that will support reflections on future investments in buildings and energy systems, based on a scientific study conducted by Efficacity teams. Monaco, by its size, is a territory of innovation very conducive to these energy transition studies. It seems essential to me to equip ourselves with the most advanced technical and scientific means to define relevant energy strategies and implement them quickly.”
Michel Salem-Sermanet, Managing Director of Efficacity, added: “This partnership with Monaco is the meeting of two strong ambitions. That of the Principality, supported by the Energy Transition Mission, and that of Efficacity, to work over the long term with territories that wish to experiment with new approaches… We are convinced that this partnership will demonstrate the operational added value of these advanced simulation and decision support tools, and that they will quickly become widespread in Europe. The challenge is major: optimising the energy strategy of each urban project is the only way to really accelerate the low carbon transition of cities.”
The National Council crammed in a huge amount of work for its last meeting of the spring session, including family allowances for self-employed workers, a bill on the fraudulent organisation of insolvency, and rights to an account.
The first bill presented was on the establishment of a right to an account. This is a revised proposal introduced in September 2017 by Christophe Steiner, then President of the National Council. He presented this at the end of his term, knowing full well that it would require a tremendous amount of legal wizardry.
The proposition has thus been turned into a project by the government. For his part, Minister of Finance and the Economy Jean Castellini described this right to the account as effective, practical and operational in the private or professional fields and confirmed the agreement of the government on all the amendments proposed by the National Council.
The next bill on the table was a question of creating family benefits for the self-employed, particularly with regard to heads of household and outmoded gender roles.
“The texts in force in this area have, so far, posed the principle of the primacy of man over woman,” Didier Gamerdinger said of the history of this issue. “However, this approach is not in line with the evolution of society which fully recognises gender equality today, which is perfectly legitimate. The women of this country aspire, and it is legitimate, to a recognition of their rights in this regard. This is the reason why the government has undertaken to put an end to the application of backward-looking rules that can no longer be understood today.”
It was brought up that negotiations with France on this matter were imperative, so the current bilateral social security convention could be revised to be acceptable and sustainable by CCSS.
“This is a breakthrough for women dependent on the scheme as self-employed workers and residents in the Principality who can now opt for the status of head of household,” said Council President Stephane Valeri. “If resident female civil servants already enjoyed this right, this is still not the case for salaried women and we can therefore only invite the government to try to reach the renegotiation of the bilateral agreement as soon as possible, a condition prior to this development.”
The meeting was wrapped up with two bills relating to the judiciary. Both bills aim to get the Principality in line with recommendations made by the Council of Europe’s Group of States against Corruption (GRECO) by 31st December. In order to make this happen, the National Council has altered the rules of procedure. Once accepted, these modifications will be sent to the High Court for approval.
Photo: National Council President Stéphane Valeri, courtesy National Council
AS Monaco Basketball has reported the return of Zvezdan Mitrovic as head coach of the Roca Team for the coming season.
Everything old is new again. Montenegrin coach Zvezdan Mitrovic is returning to the Rock after a two year hiatus.
The 50-year-old was coach from 2015 to 2018 and saw the team scale massive heights. In 2016, Coach Z took his team to the top spot in the regular season, followed by two more seasons at number one. Those same three years saw the Roca team hoist the Leader’s Cup trophy each year.
Under Mitrovic, AS Monaco also won the bronze at the FIBA Champion’s League in Tenerife in 2017 and played in the finals the following year in Athens. Additionally, they made it to the finals of the Jeep Elite playoffs in 2018, where sadly they fell to Le Mans in the end.
Even during his two years in ASVEL, the coach was warmly received every time he returned to the Rock.
Coach Z is delighted to be back, saying, “As you can imagine, this return particularly pleased me. I am with friends. I feel at home in Monaco, this club is like my second home… We know the context, with the budget drop linked to the crisis that affects practically all clubs. We will do everything in our power to successfully wear the colours of AS Monaco… Daghe!”
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