Champagne and Oyster Cycle Club to celebrate 10th anniversary with street party in Monaco

Champagne and Oysters Cycle Club

With the landmark 10th edition of the Champagne and Oyster Cycle Club’s Saint Tropez to Monaco charity bike ride on the horizon, the team has announced its plans for a post-race street party in the Principality in celebration of this significant anniversary.  

On Sunday 5th May, the riders of the Champagne and Oyster Cycling Club (COCC) will begin their annual 140-kilometre bike ride from the Riviera haven of Saint Tropez to Monaco.  

The excursion will be starting at 8.30am sharp, with the goal of arriving in the Principality at 4.30pm. Once at their destination, the cyclists will be met by their families, friends and supporters at Slammers on Rue Suffren Reymond for a big street party celebrating their achievements over the years. 

The COCC was created in 2011 by seven friends who shared a passion for cycling and philanthropy. Their charity ride along the Côte d’Azur has grown significantly since then, attracting participation from the likes of Prince Albert II himself, Formula 1’s Eddie Jordan and other sporting icons.  

In 2024, the funds raised by the event will be given to My Name’5 Doddie, an association committed to funding research into motor neuron disease, and the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation, which seeks to teach water safety and drowning prevention skills to children around the world as well as promote the value of sport in education.

See more: In pictures: Princess Charlene makes a splash at Water Safety Day in Monaco

Last year, the COCC bike ride raised over €70,000 for the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation. 

Organisers of the 10th COCC bike ride are encouraging local Monaco businesses to contribute to the fundraiser’s noble causes through sponsorship opportunities. Riders are also always welcome to donate, with the participants personally required to raise at least €1,000 in sponsorship. 

For more information about the event and how to get involved, contact info@coccmonaco.com 

 

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Photo credit: COCC 

Remembering Marcel Pagnol: Monaco pays homage with day of celebrations

Monaco has paid tribute to Marcel Pagnol, the famous French writer and filmmaker who resided in the Principality for more than a decade and shared a close relationship with Prince Rainier III and his father, Prince Pierre.

Marcel Pagnol, who was deeply connected to Monaco, passed away in 1974. On 16th April, 50 years after his death, a day of remembrance was held in the Principality at the instigation of Prince Albert II. 

The day began with a public tribute in the Place Marcel Pagnol in the Jardin Trocadero, where the Prince and Nicolas Pagnol, the writer’s grandson, unveiled a commemorative stone. A plaque honouring the great man was also erected at 12 Boulevard de Moulins, where Pagnol resided from 1951 to 1954. 

“A very beautiful ceremony to remind us of the deep ties that Marcel Pagnol had with the Prince’s Palace of Monaco,” said Nicolas Pagnol of the event. “My grandfather was a man of all Provence, which Frédéric Mistral defined as the territory stretching from Arles to Menton.” 

As the day progressed, a roundtable discussion entitled ‘Pagnol le Monégasque’ was held at the Théâtre des Variétés, where the audience enjoyed exclusive insights into Pagnol’s life through never-before-seen footage sourced from the Palace and his family archives. 

Concluding the day, a screening of The Baker’s Wife, a French language film by Pagnol from 1938, took place as part of the All the Art of Cinema programme run by the Monaco’s Audiovisual Institute.  

A double stamp of Pagnol and the late Prince Pierre was also released to mark the occasion.  

Click on the images below to see more photographs of the event:

Read related:

Heritage sites in Monaco that are well worth a visit

 

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Photo credit: Monaco Communications Department / Manuel Vitali 

Working in Monaco: New report provides snapshot of the workforce

A new report from IMSEE has revealed insights into the Principality’s 74,000-strong workforce, including who they work for, where they live and predominantly what age they are.

Monaco’s workforce is unlike most others in the world. This is due in part to its size, its unique status and the fact that certain activities present in other countries simply do not exist here. 

This makes traditional indicators for workforce market analysis unusable in the Principality. To get a clearer picture of this unique situation, IMSEE, Monaco’s national statistics agency, has put together a Monaco-specific profile that reveals several interesting facts. 

Some facts and figures

At the end of 2023, the Principality’s labour force sat at 73,707 workers, with more than nine in 10 of those being salaried employees working for an organisation. Of those, a significant 85%, or 62,186, were in the private sector, with civil service positions accounting for 7%, or 5,153 people. The self-employed numbered 6,368 and made up the remaining local 8.6% of workers. 

Market services accounted for the vast majority of jobs, with 72.5% in this sector. The next closest was non-market services, which accounted for just under 14%, followed by construction at nearly 10%, and industry-related workers at 4%. 

A potential indicator of the favourable working conditions in Monaco, and the growing economy, is the fact that employment figures rose by 24% in the past decade. In real terms, that is 14,300 new positions available to employees since 2013. Most of these, around 12,100, were salaried positions, while the non-salaried employees, now totalling 2,150, more than doubled in that period. 

Who is working in Monaco? 

In terms of gender, there are less than four in 10 female employees in the Principality’s workforce. Though outnumbered, there are certain positions with higher proportions of women than men. Those holding jobs in public administration, education, health care and social work activities are almost 72% female, followed by women in the service sector who account for 60% of the jobs. Other female-heavy jobs are in retail at almost 53%, and financial and insurance at 50.2%. 

People work hard in Monaco, wracking up 103 million hours in the private sector in 2023. This is up over the last 10 years by more than 18 million hours, and is well above pre-Covid levels. 

The workforce is also steadily getting older. The average age of a private sector employee is 42.4 years of age, up nearly a year-and-a-half from the 2014 average of 41.1. 

IMSEE explains the breakdown, saying “The 35-44 age group accounted for the largest number of employees in 2014, at 28.2%. Ten years later, it accounts for 25.5% of the workforce, while the 45-54 age group amounts to 26.2%, making it the largest age category. The proportion of employees aged 55-64 has increased the most over the period (+5.4 points). At the same time, employees aged between 25 and 44, who were in the majority at 52.5% 10 years earlier, now represent just 47.2% of the population.”

Where do Monaco’s workers live? 

Monegasque workers are the minority, making up just 10.6% of the 2023 private sector workforce. This number is reasonably stable, having been the case for the past decade. 

The majority of workers, almost 58%, live in the Alpes-Maritimes, not including the neighbouring villages – those make up 22%. The remaining 10% live outside the Alpes-Maritimes, including Italy. 

Nice has the highest population of Monaco-based workers, with more than a quarter – over 15,000 – in the city alone. People from Menton make up 12%, or 7,000, private sector workers, just beating out the Monegasques who number 6,046. The workforce is overwhelmingly French at 61%, with the next closest nationality being Italians who make up 15%. Rounding out the top three are Portuguese, at 7.2%. 

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Photo by Monaco Life

 

 

Podcast: Fine and rare wines and spirit auctioneer Jamie Ritchie

In this podcast, we talk to Jamie Ritchie, one of the industry’s most respected authorities on fine and rare wines and spirits. 

Jamie worked with Sotheby’s for 32 years and under his leadership, revenues rose to $132 million US dollars. Jamie presided over several record-breaking auctions and he holds the record for selling the most expensive bottles of both wine and spirits ever to go under the hammer. Last July, Jamie Ritchie took a leap and joined the blockchain-backed rare wines and spirits marketplace BlockBar. 

Topics that we explore in this podcast: 

  • Career highlights
  • Buying wine to drink as opposed to buying wine to keep or invest
  • How to choose and look after good wine
  • Beaujolais nouveau – good or bad? 
  • The value of NFTs in this marketplace
  • Why blockchain is great for provenance
  • Trends in the fine and rare wines and spirits industry moving forward

Play the podcast here below, or you can listen to it on your Spotify app (click on the Spotify logo)…

 

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French air traffic controllers’ strike impacts travel across Europe

France’s striking air traffic controllers have failed to reach an agreement with authorities, triggering mass cancellations and delays all over the continent. 45% of flights in and out of Nice Côte d’Azur Airport are said to have been impacted. 

Though the strike was initially believed to have been called off on Wednesday 24th April thanks to a last-minute deal with the National Union of Air Traffic Controllers (SNCTA), the main union in the sector, it all seems to have fallen apart again, with the other two controllers’ unions refusing to budge.  

The fallout has led to mass confusion and chaos in airports all over Europe as airlines scramble to get flights safely off the ground.  

In an interview with French news channel LCI, Sophie Binet, the general secretary of the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), has explained the reasoning behind her union’s decision to hold out. 

“The problem is that there are negotiations that have been open for 15 months, but are not moving forward,” she said. “The proof is that the air traffic controllers are forced to strike or threaten to strike to make management hear their arguments. We ask them [air traffic controllers] to work more and the least we can do is that they be paid more, and that is what management is refusing today.”  

As of 11am on Thursday 25th April, 45% of flights in and out of Nice Côte d’Azur Airport are understood to have been impacted by the situation. This is down from the initial 60% that had been projected the day before. 

“Due to a national air navigation strike, disruptions and flight cancellations are to be expected,” reads a statement on the Nice Côte d’Azur Airport website. “You can follow the traffic updates and flight status in real-time on our website or mobile app.”  

At Paris Orly, cancellations could reach 75%, according to reports, while 55% of flights at Charles de Gaulle could be grounded as well as 65% in Marseille.  

Airline officials and authorities alike have both argued that if negotiations don’t move ahead quickly, the current state of affairs could led to further problems down the line, particularly during the Paris Olympics this summer. 

More than a million people are anticipated to travel through airports in the French capital during this period, and future strike action and disruptions could prove devastating to the reputation of the city and the event.  

Read related:

Monaco E-Prix: Event to affect traffic and parking this weekend

 

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Photo source: Erik Odiin, Unsplash

Lascaux in Monaco: Reproduction of the famous cave coming to the Musée d’Anthropologie Préhistorique

Lascaux à Monaco

Monaco’s Musée d’Anthropologie Préhistorique will soon welcome a fascinating exploration of the famous Lascaux Cave, with scale models, realistic reconstructions and original objects from the site coming to the Principality for a very special six-month exhibition.  

The Lascaux Cave, part of a historically important cave system near the town of Montignac in the Dordogne region of France, is a prehistory lover’s dream.  

More than 600 incredibly well-preserved wall paintings of hunting scenes and typical flora and fauna of the Upper Paleolithic period are represented here, each a work of art left behind by the people who inhabited the region some 17,000 years ago.  

Discovered in 1940 by an 18-year-old whose dog disappeared down a hole left by an uprooted tree, the network of underground caverns was explored and then protected as an historical landmark in the following decades. Visitors were allowed to descend into the incredible space between 1948 and 1963, by which time the deterioration of the site forced it to close to the public. 

Today, people can instead discover faithful reproductions of many of the wonders of the caves at the nearby visitors’ centre. 

LASCAUX À MONACO 

From 19th April, and running for a full six months, the new temporary exhibit called Lascaux à Monaco at the Musée d’Anthropologie Préhistorique will offer one such reproduction.  

Visitors to the museum will be invited to step into the past and view some of the special pieces found within the actual cave, including wall art, reconstructions and even original objects from the site.  

Some of the highlights include an amazing 1/10 scale model of the Grotte de Lascaux replete with the famous prehistoric paintings, realistic reproductions of a Cro-Magnon family and interactive virtual reality experiences. 

For more details, click here

Read related:

Getting to know Monaco: Exploring the Jardin Exotique neighbourhood

 

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Photo source: Musée d’Anthropologie Préhistorique

 

 

*Originally published on 10th April 2024