Monaco Life talks to Prof. Phillip Landrigan, member of the Minderoo-Monaco Commission, about how a new report detailing the impacts of plastic on human health throughout its entire life cycle could lead to an international cap on plastic production.
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The results of the first round of the Baccalauréat marks are in for Monaco’s hard-working students, and the results are very impressive.
The Baccalauréat, commonly known as the Bac, is the diploma awarded to Monegasque and French high school students after a two-year course of study and subsequent exams. The general equivalent to A Levels in the UK, it is essential to pass this course for those considering the university path.
EXCEPTIONAL RESULTS
In all, 98.7% of the students in the Principality who sat the general series Bac at the Lycée Albert Ier and Lycée François d’Assise-Nicolas Barré passed, with 83.2% receiving a special mention from the board.
In numbers, this means that 62 pupils were given “very good” mentions, including four who received a special congratulations from the jury. Another 114 came away with “good” and 87 more were designated as having done “fairly good”.
For the technological series at the Lycée Albert Ier and the Lycée Rainier III, 98.1% of the students passed, with 73.1% of the Baccalauréat holders in this series obtaining mentions. In this group, there was one “very good”, 11 “good” and 26 “fairly good” honours.
In the professional series at the Lycée Rainier III, there was a success rate of 92.9%.
HARD WORK PAYS OFF
The students have clearly worked hard to achieve such fantastic results. Credit is also due to their teachers who led them along the way.
Via a press release, the Monaco Government gave credit where due, saying, “These remarkable results are the result of the unfailing commitment of all the staff and the exemplary involvement of the students. They honour the Principality and bear witness, once again, to the excellence of its teaching.”
Kudos were also handed out to management, non-teaching staff and the Department of National Education, Youth and Sports for their part in making Monaco such an academic success story.
From Wednesday, Monaco will host the 10th edition of the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge: a top-level meeting between professionals and students to advance sustainable yachting.
Kicking off on Wednesday 5th and running until Saturday 8th July, the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge has established itself as a renowned meeting for alternative energy sources to power the maritime industry, bringing engineering students and professionals together to present their latest innovations.
In this landmark 10th edition, organised by Yacht Club de Monaco, 46 teams from 25 nations will participate, including 31 universities for around 50 boats.
“The goal remains to stimulate creativity to design eco-friendly propulsion systems and share the experiences and knowledge acquired,” says Bernard d’Alessandri, General Secretary of the Yacht Club de Monaco.
The event has gone from strength to strength since its launch in 2014. With the support of the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, as well as Credit Suisse, BMW and Sbm Offshore, the event involves leading players in the yachting industry, such as shipyards Oceanco, Ferretti, Sanlorenzo, Lürssen, Monaco Marine and Palumbo SY Refit.
More than a race
Actually, the Monaco Energy Boat Challenge started on Thursday 15th June with the first Live Career Day, an online networking session that kickstarted initial contacts between yachting professionals and the upcoming generation of engineers as part of the Job Forum. Its two-pronged objective is to meet a growing demand by students looking for internships and engineering jobs, and meet the expanding needs of the industry.
Recruiters are therefore looking for budding young talent with proven technical abilities. For example, renowned Italian shipyard Sanlorenzo has developed through its subsidiary, Bluegame, a 10m-long hydrogen-powered foiling boat with a maximum speed of 50 knots and a range of 180 nautical miles that will be used for the next America’s Cup.
Also present is Malizia-Seaexplorer, the new IMOCA of Team Malizia founded by the Yacht Club de Monaco’s Vice-President Pierre Casiraghi, which will be in the Principality for the first time on 4th July, with Pierre Casiraghi on board as well as Boris Herrmann and the whole team, having completed The Ocean Race round the world in stages with crew, a distance of 32,000 nautical miles.
Monaco’s expedition catamaran Love the Ocean has been blessed by Archbishop Dominique-Marie David ahead of its departure in September. Skippered by explorer Yvan Griboval, the boat will embark on an eight-year mission to collect data on the little-known health benefits of sea sponges to help save them from extinction.
The catamaran Love the Ocean is part of the OceanoScientific family, a philanthropic association that organises sailing expeditions that have no CO2 emissions in regions of the seas that have seldom been explored, if at all, to increase knowledge of the oceans and of the causes and consequences of climate change and pollution.
One such location is the coral reefs of Juan de Nova, located in the Mozambique Channel between Madagascar and Africa, in the Indian Ocean.
As part of the OceanoScientific Expeditions 2023-2030, Yvan Griboval will depart on 21st September from the Yacht Club de Monaco for an adventure to the Eparses Islands onboard the Love The Ocean catamaran. The aim: to collect the genetic data of different species of sponges and help prove the economic value of keeping this ancient organism, which is facing accelerated extinction, alive.
Sponges are believed to be the oldest animals on the planet. Photo credit: Karl Callwood, Unsplash
The oldest animal of the sea
Relatives of the humble sea sponge have filtered Earth’s waters for 650 million years or more, long before the first plants took to land. Their simplicity has led scientists to suggest sponges were the earliest animals to arise on our planet.
Today, the descendants of these amazing organisms are under the severe threat of the Sixth Extinction due to human activity.
OceanoScientific is therefore on a mission to help safeguard their biological heritage and preserve it for future generations.
One way of achieving this is by identifying the value that their molecules can have on human health and future new therapies.
“Let’s stop piling up alarmist scientific findings, let’s consider the Ocean as the most gigantic resource of humanity and let’s demonstrate that ecology and economy can be effectively married,” says Griboval.
“By bioprospecting little-known sponges on little-explored reefs using an oceanographic sailboat, using only three to five centimetre samples analysed biologically and genetically according to innovative techniques, we are inventing a virtuous development of an as yet unknown underwater resources, for the benefit of the sites of origin of these organisms.”
Juan de Nova is a French-controlled tropical island in the narrowest part of the Mozambique Channel
Scientific objectives
The OceanoScientific Expeditions 2023-2030 are the first sailing oceanographic campaigns in the Eparses Islands to explore all facets of sponge biodiversity. The aim is to make an inventory of species in situ by molecular extraction onboard the Love The Ocean.
The result will be a genetic database of marine organisms in the service of science, health, wellbeing and the environment. It will be a reference collection of tissues and extracts that will then be the subject of an integrative and interdisciplinary study.
The aim is to provide chemists with methods that could reproduce these molecules by biomimicry.
More than DNA collection and analysis
Every 10 seconds, the OceanoScientific System (OCS System) will be used to collect and automatically transmit every hour new data of the Air-Sea interface, feeding the international weather forecasting and operational oceanography centres and providing new information on climate in remote locations.
In addition to the oceanographic campaigns in the Eparses Islands, from May to July the explorer will also be studying the universe of sponges on the Mediterranean coasts, looking for new species, together with students.
As the future protectors of the ocean, children are a major focus of OceanoScientific. On Thursday, school children from local CM1 and CM2 classes were at the Yacht Club de Monaco to witness the blessing of Love The Ocean by Archbishop Dominique-Marie David and hear more about the expedition. Through education, the association is hoping to inspire this generation towards the New Maritime Professions in the Blue Economy, seeing the value that lies within the sea.
The blessing ceremony on Thursday ended with the singing of the ‘Anthem of the Ocean: Love the Ocean’, produced by the Oceanoscientific Monaco association and written and performed by Monegasque singe Olivia Dorato.
Prince Albert has been a supporter of Yvan Griboval and his environmental causes for many years. Photo source: YCM
Backed by Monaco and Prince Albert
On Saturday 24th June, Yvan Griboval presented the 2023-2030 major initiatives of the OceanoScientific association to Prince Albert II of Monaco, as the Sovereign made a special visit to the Love The Ocean catamaran, currently moored in the Yacht Club de Monaco’s berth spaces.
Among the topics discussed was the Mediterranean Of The Future operation, to which the Principality of Monaco is committed and whose colours the Love The Ocean bears.
Monaco is to be the start line of the Ultra Trail Côte d’Azur Mercantour, one of the world’s most gruelling cross-country running events in the world, this coming Friday.
At 125 kilometres of hard and unforgiving terrain with elevation gains of up to 3,000 metres, it is no exaggeration to call the Ultra Trail Côte d’Azur Mercantour one of the toughest races of its kind in the world.
The hardcore athletes taking part will assemble themselves on the Quai Albert Ier of Monaco’s Port Hercule on Friday 7th July in preparation for a 7pm start that evening.
Upon leaving the harbour, the runners will traverse the steep, urban sprawl of Monaco on a route along the Rue Grimaldi, Rue de la Turbie, Boulevard Rainier III, Boulevard de Belgique, Boulevard du Jardin Exotique and Avenue Hector Otto. From there, it will be up on to the Moyenne Corniche in the direction of the Col de Turini.
Drivers and pedestrians in Monaco alike are being asked to give the competitors 15 minutes of grace between 7pm and 7.15pm as they wind up to the French border. The affected roads and pavements will be reopened as soon as the last runner has passed through.
This event will mark the ninth edition of the epic race. The finish line has been set for Saint Martin Vésubie on 9th July.
Monaco Life brings you the latest community and government news, including a top literary prize linked to Prince Pierre and the renaming of Monaco’s Lycée Technique et Hôtelier in honour of Prince Rainier III.
Théâtre Princesse Grace unveils 2023/24 programme
At the end of June, the Théâtre Princesse Grace revealed a programme featuring more than 30 shows that begins on 26th September with Molière’s Le Misanthrope (also known as the Cantankerous Lover in English). While the vast majority of the performances will be in French, there will be a bilingual English-French one-man show by Paul Taylor on 6th December. In a second nod to the theatre’s foreign language patrons, an Italian production written by Margaret Mazzantini called Zorro: Un eremita sul marciapiede will take place on 13th April next year.
Theatre subscriptions for the 2023/24 season will be available from 10th July. Individual seats can be reserved from 4th September. For more information on the theatre and its upcoming programme, please click here.
The 2023/24 Théâtre Princesse Grace programme was released in late June. Photo credit: TPG
Discovery Grant shortlisted entries announced
During an event held at the Médiathèque de Monaco on 29th June, the Literary Council of the Prince Pierre Foundation – the Conseil Littéraire de la Fondation Prince Pierre – presented the works it had selected as in the running for the 2023 Bourse de la Découverte. It is a prize that rewards a first-time-published French-speaking author. The list of novels shortlisted can be found here.
Each of the authors is expected to attend an event at the multi-media library on 9th October ahead of the awards ceremony the following day at the Salle Garnier. Their novels can be found in libraries in Monaco and the surrounding area.
The list of authors in the running for this year’s Bourse de la Découverte has been announced. Photo credit: Stéphane Danna / Monaco Communications Department
The Lycée Technique et Hôtelier renamed
Monaco’s vocational and catering school, the Lycée Technique et Hôtelier, has been renamed in honour of Prince Rainier III as part of wider celebrations and commemorations that mark the centenary year of the birth of the late sovereign.
A ceremony that was well-attended by the Monegasque Princely family and government officials was held on 1st July to officially unveil the new name of the establishment – Lycée Rainier III – as well as a bust of the Prince by sculptor Kees Verkade.
The school, which welcomes aspiring young people from the Principality and neighbouring regions in France and Italy, was opened by Prince Albert II in 2013.
Members of the Princely family and government officials gather in front of the newly renamed Lycée Rainier III. Photo credit: Frédéric Nebinger / Monaco Communications Department
Monaco’s Child and Family Services department has moved
The Service Petite Enfance et Familles has moved into a new and dedicated space within the Foyer Sainte-Dévote on 3 Rue Philibert Florence. The family-focused department and its team are available in person from 8.30am to 4.30pm on weekdays. The email address and telephone numbers remain the same: +377 93 15 61 80 and spef@mairie.mc.
Diversions due to F(ê)aites de la Danse from Thursday
In light of the weekend-long F(ê)aites de la Danse festival that is set to take over Casino Square for 24 hours from 12pm on Saturday 8th July, there will be some disruptions to road traffic and parking in the central Monte-Carlo district.
All parking and traffic will be prohibited along the Avenue de Monte-Carlo and in Casino Square from Thursday 6th at 8pm until Friday 7th July at 2am. Access will then be reopened until 8pm on the Friday evening, when it will close again until 2am on Saturday 8th July. From 3pm on the Saturday until 9am on the morning of Sunday 9th July, the same restrictions will be imposed on motorists. Those heading in the direction of the Casino from Avenue des Spéluges will be diverted via the Avenue de la Madone and vice versa. Those with a subscription to the Casino car park will be unaffected.
