Prince Albert II, Princess Charlène, Princess Gabriella and Princess Akiko of Mikasa were present on March 20th to officially launch the 14th edition of the Saint Dévote Tournament, as 24 junior rugby teams from across the world gathered at the Stade Louis II.
The opening ceremony kicked off at 2pm, with all 24 teams parading before the Prince and Princesses. Each team’s captain was dressed in traditional clothing from their home nation, waving to the crowd.
France’s team parading before the crowds, photo by Monaco Life
The procession concluded with the ceremonial official group photograph bringing together the captains, Prince Albert II, Princess Charlène, Princess Gabriella and Princess Akiko of Mikasa.
Then, pool play kicked off at 2:30pm.
Prince Albert II, Princess Charlène, Princess Gabriella, Princess Akiko of Mikasa and the captains of the teams during the official group photo, photo by Monaco Life
Thirty-six matches took place across Friday afternoon and evening, played simultaneously across two pitches named in honour of Prince Jacques and Princess Gabriella.
The competition was divided into six pools of four teams each (A through F) with every side playing the other three teams in their pool on Friday, before the knockout stages on Saturday. The final pool matches concluded around 6:30pm.
All matches were played in a seven-a-side format with 13-minute games, and all players were under 12 years old.
During the tournament, photo by Monaco Life
The tournament is organised by the Fédération Monégasque de Rugby, presided over by Princess Charlene, in partnership with the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation, and is officially recognised by both World Rugby and Rugby Europe.
This year’s competition marked the most international edition to date, with 24 teams representing 23 nations. Sides travelled from South Africa, England, Scotland, Wales, France, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Japan, India, Singapore, Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Ecuador, Georgia, Greece, the United States, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Andorra, and the United Arab Emirates, while Monaco was also represented.
Saturday brought the knockout stages, with the Bowl, Trophy and Cup competitions all decided across a packed day of rugby.
The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation presented its 2025 impact report presentation on Thursday 19th March at Marius, giving donors and partners a glimpse of what lies ahead.
In his speech, Romain Ciarlet, Vice Chairman and CEO of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, was careful to make one thing clear. “We raised these funds from investors, not donors — I want to specify that. It’s very important.”
He was talking about the ReOcean Fund, the Foundation’s impact investment vehicle, which targets companies delivering measurable benefits to ocean health. It has raised €75 million against a €100 million target and will complete four new investments totalling roughly €20 million in 2026. It is, by any measure, a significant departure from the grant-making that has defined environmental philanthropy for decades.
The reason for the shift is that young companies with credible solutions struggle to access the capital they need to scale, and donors alone cannot fill that gap. So the Foundation has positioned itself as a bridge, using its networks and credibility to bring commercial investors into territory they might otherwise avoid.
And this approach is already producing results. One recent investment is in Bound4Blue, a Spanish firm founded by aerospace engineers, whose rigid suction sails can reduce fuel consumption on commercial vessels by 15 to 20 per cent. Another is in NatureMetrics, a British company that uses environmental DNA to measure biodiversity, a tool increasingly in demand as corporate biodiversity reporting requirements tighten.
Turning talks into commitments
The Foundation’s initiatives have also translated into hard commitments, with the most convincing example being the Blue Economy and Finance Forum, which it hosted ahead of last year’s United Nations Ocean Conference. The Forum mobilised €8.7 billion in new pledges toward 2030 ocean goals. A second edition now takes place on 28th and 29th May 2026. “These were not just talks,” Ciarlet said. “There were commitments.”
Funding the people who live in nature
However, investment is only one part of the equation for the Foundation. On the other end of the scale sits work that supports people that actually bear the consequences.
In Pakistan’s Indus Delta, home to one of the world’s largest mangrove ecosystems, the Foundation supported a project run by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that Ciarlet described as emblematic of the Foundation’s vision.
“It led to the creation of two marine protected areas, the restoration of nearly seven thousand hectares of degraded mangrove ecosystems, and it really empowered communities,” he said. “Mangroves absorb carbon and restore biodiversity — it’s common sense.” Thousands of local people were trained and helped to build livelihoods that work with nature rather than against it.
Romain Ciarlet during the presentation, photo credit: Monaco Life
Backing Indigenous communities directly
That model – funding communities directly, bypassing international intermediaries – runs through most of the Foundation’s land-based work.
In 2026, three Indigenous-led organisations will begin on-the-ground implementation of forest protection projects in the Amazon Basin, the Congo Basin and South-East Asia, following a competitive selection process that drew over 80 applicants. “We do everything to empower local communities, and especially Indigenous communities around the globe,” Ciarlet said.
Studies suggest that 91 per cent of land managed by Indigenous communities is in good or fair ecological condition. Protecting forests through the people who actually live in them, the Foundation argues, is simply more effective than the alternative.
Also in 2026
Other initiatives include the Global Fund for Coral Reefs, co-founded by the Foundation in 2020, which will distribute an estimated €12 million across programmes in seven countries in a second funding round.
Meanwhile, The Donors’ Initiative for Mediterranean Freshwater Ecosystems (DIMFE) will hold its first ever Forum in Croatia to mark its fifth anniversary.
The MedFund will continue expanding its support for Mediterranean marine protected areas, with €760,000 in new five-year funding approved for protected areas in Turkey, Croatia and Lebanon.
And lastly, the Re.Generation programme will welcome a new class of young environmental leaders to Monaco from 22nd to 31st May.
The Monaco Fire Brigade received a high-ranking French military official on Tuesday, as General Pierre de Villeneuve, commander of the French Civil Security Military Brigade (BMSC), paid an official visit to the Principality.
The BMSC is a specialist organisation of around 1,700 rescue personnel drawn from four army engineering regiments based across France. Operating under the authority of the Interior Ministry, the brigade can mobilise 300 soldiers within a matter of hours, deploying them to respond to natural disasters such as earthquakes, floods and wildfires, as well as chemical, radiological and biological incidents.
General de Villeneuve’s visit began at the La Condamine fire station, where he reviewed the fire guard before receiving a full briefing from Lieutenant-Colonel Maxime Yvrard, the brigade’s commanding officer. He then watched the ceremonial changing of the Prince’s Carabiniers Guard at the Palace Square.
An official lunch followed, attended by Lionel Beffre, Monaco’s Minister of the Interior, senior officers, and the General himself, who signed the unit’s guest book.
The afternoon was spent at the Fontvieille fire station, where he was shown Monaco’s emergency operations centre and a range of new equipment and projects.
How the relationship was formed
The two units point to the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster as a defining moment in their relationship, when they worked side by side in one of the most challenging rescue operations in recent memory.
Cooperation between the two services if formalised under a Franco-Monegasque agreement, which allows Monaco firefighters to be embedded within French rescue teams during major disasters abroad.
In a practical sign of that partnership, nine BMSC soldiers will join the Monaco Fire Brigade to help provide security during the 2026 Grand Prix
Travellers hoping to wake up to views of the Mediterranean coastline this summer have been served with disappointment.
FS Treni Turistici Italiani, the tourism arm of Italy’s state railway group, has confirmed that its popular Espresso Riviera night train will not run in 2026 — despite strong demand and a sell-out debut season just last year.
The service, which connected Rome with Marseille via Nice and Monaco, has been suspended due to that the company describes as “operational limitations at the Ventimiglia border”.
Behind the scenes, running an international train involves significant complexity. To operate in France, a train requires a locomotive compatible with the French network and drivers authorised to drive on it, conditions that have proven impossible to meet this year.
A promising start, now on hold
The Espresso Riviera first ran in 2024 as Nice-Milan service, though the debut was not without its own difficulties. Back then, the planned stop at Monaco had to be cancelled at the last minute due to concerns over diesel emissions in the station’s underground ventilation system.
However, the issue was resolved, and by 2025 the train added Monaco as part of its expanded Rome-Marseille route.
That 2025 service, which offered passengers retro-style shared couchettes and private cabins, sold out across all nine weekends it ran between July and August, carrying more than 3,500 passengers.
Until a few days ago, it has been expected to return bigger than ever, with more departures and a longer season running from June to September.
What happens now
FS Treni Turistici Italiani says it is working with partners to bring the service back, though no timeline has been given. The company has directly contacted customers who had already reached out to its service team. For now, the platforms of Nice, Monaco and Marseille will have to wait — and so will the passengers who were counting on arriving there in style
Forbes has published its annual billionaires ranking for 2026, with a record 3,428 people worldwide now holding billionaire status – 400 more than the previous year.
Their collective fortune reaches $20.1 trillion and at the very top of Forbes’ list, once again, sits Elon Musk, whose $839 billion fortune, built through Tesla and SpaceX, puts him in a league of his own.
Among those listed are two residents of Monaco, ranked 664th and 1,074th respectively.
Stephano Pessina – $6.3 billion
Stephano Pessina, aged 84, has been one of Monaco’s most prominent residents since becoming a naturalised citizen in 1992. His wealth traces back to 1977, when he stepped into his family’s pharmaceutical distribution business in Naples and began an acquisition spree that would span decades.
The endpoint of that journey was Walgreens Boots Alliance, the American-British pharmacy giant he now chairs. The company has faced headwinds recently, with falling share prices and store closures, but Pessina has not stepped away.
David Nahmad – $4 billion
David Nahmad, aged 78, arrived in Monaco via a rather different route. Born in Beirut to a Syrian-Jewish family, he and his brothers gravitated towards art as young men in Milan during the 1960s, eventually amassing a collection that few institutions could rival.
The family is said to hold between 4,500 and 5,000 works, among them more than 300 Picassos, kept in a Geneva storage facility. France has recognised his cultural contributions with the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
Away from the art world, he also holds an unlikely distinction: 1996 Backgammon World Champion.
Together the two men account for just over $10 billion, a figure that reinforces Monaco’s status as a place where exceptional wealth tends to settle
Monaco will release a commemorative stamp on 28th March to mark the historic first apostolic visit of Pope Leo XIV to the Principality.
Although Pope Paul III passed through Monaco in 1538, no pope has made a formal apostolic journey here since.
Priced at €2.25 and limited to 42,000 copies, the stamp will be printed by offset in a vertical format of 30 x 40.85 mm and sold in sheets of 10. Photography is credited to Vatican Media.
According to the Office des Timbres de Monaco, collectors will be able to purchase the individual stamp, the full sheet, a special first-day cover envelope and an exclusive insert on the day itself at three locations: the Stamp and Coin Museum, the Place de la Mairie in Monaco-Ville, and in the Fontvieille district near the Stade Louis-II at the corner of Avenue des Castelans and Rue de l’Industrie.
It will be subsequently available at the Stamp and Coin Museum, post offices, philatelic counters and dealers across the Principality, at the Carré d’Encre in Paris, and online atwww.oetp-monaco.com
