Category: news

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The Good News Prince

Prince Albert makes a surprise visit to Alexandre Rinaldi at Les 5 Saveurs yesterday. Photo: Les 5 Saveurs Facebook.

Yesterday, I came across Peter Allen’s article “EXCLUSIVE: Prince Albert of Monaco to appear in court in new year to fight claims he fathered a THIRD love child before marrying wife Charlene.”

It is hardly surprising that a “bombshell” piece would follow the recent photos of Princess Charlene with her partly shaved head. Clearly her unspoken words are manifesting and sending tongues wagging.

In the mid-2000s, I was a stringer for People Magazine (which, I confess led to a life-long habit of reading the Daily Mail as it was available in print along the Riviera while People was not) and part of my stint was being a liaison with the Palace.

In fact, in 2006, I contributed to “Who’s Your Daddy?” – a piece on the Prince and the recognition of his daughter Jazmin Grace. I spoke to his attorney, Thierry Lacoste, who was very down to earth and forthcoming about the situation.

While I am grateful to People and the by-lines, I have never been comfortable trying to get “sources” to diss on friends or employees, and the pressure of being asked to find palace insiders gave me nothing but diarrhoea.

By the way, 2006 was also the year Prince Albert started a more serious relationship with Charlene Wittstock, five years after their first date.

Fourteen years later, I certainly have a deeper understanding of all things Monaco. Sure, even with the cafés closed, gossip is an active sport in the Principality with people carefully whispering and texting in code, but what the outside world will never understand is that the loyalty between the people and the Prince can never be broken – not by headlines, not by illegitimate offspring or by supposed marriage woes. This is not to say that residents are always happy with the quality of life or decisions made by his government, but the Prince’s personal life is his business.

What does matter, especially during trying times of a pandemic, is how Prince Albert supports the community, like making a surprise visit under the radar to a local business, one that has been working non-stop trying to survive and to help others on the Rock survive during the Covid crisis.

“Un grand merci a Monseigneur qui est venu au magasin,” Alexandre Rinaldi of Les 5 Saveurs posted on Facebook last night. Alexandre tells me, “The Prince surprised me and I was extremely moved and happy.”

And that is Good News. Just not a headline that sells papers.

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Can you shop in Ventimiglia before Christmas?

Photo: Ventimiglia Turismo Facebook

Yesterday, a FB post by Ventimiglia Turismo was brought to my attention. Essentially the post reads:

“Dear French friends, from December 15th to 20th you will finally be able to come to Ventimiglia! To come to Italy, you must respect the health regulations in force in our country. Please wear a mask and obey the safety distances and health laws, inside and outside the stores. We are waiting for you!”

The Italian government has made it very clear that anyone entering the country would have to quarantine for two weeks, even if the traveler provides a negative Covid result within 72 hours. Only people who are traveling for work or medical reasons would be exempt – this does not include anyone hoping to buy cheaper cigarettes across the frontier.

I contacted the Tourist Office in Ventimiglia to see if we can indeed visit without any quarantine or testing restrictions and was given two different answers.

By direct message I was told “the laws are unfortunately not very clear, you should ask the border police or have a negative swab for security (le leggi purtroppo non sono molto chiare, le conviene chiedere alle forze dell’ordine in frontiera o avere un tampone negativo).

By email, I was told “there is no requirement for a swab or quarantine for those returning to France from Italy, even during the Christmas period.”

To clarify on the French side, I reached out to a contact who is in the know about all things police, and this person had just been to Italy the day before yesterday and suggested anyone wanting to visit should go via the highway, and not the coastal road where the border police could turn you back.

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Body discovered in Larvotto

On Wednesday evening, a Monaco resident in the Larvotto district looked out from the balcony and made a “gruesome” discovery.

“I saw this white thing with 4 limbs around 5:30 p.m. It did not really look like a body, it was huge but the limbs were moving in the joints in the waves so it reminded me of a body,” the person tells me.

Using a camera with a 500 mm lens to blow up a photo, the person could “identify hands and fingers” and immediately alerted authorities.

The maritime police, who came at approximately 6:30 p.m., confirmed to the person that it was a corpse.

According to sources, a preliminary investigation indicates the corpse was “most likely” from a coffin.

We know that two cemeteries were washed away in storm Alex: In Saint-Dalmas, Tende, 150 bodies were found downstream and in Saint Martin Vésubie coffins have been recovered floating in flood water. Also trying to figure out what happened to the 160 migrants who were at the camp in Roya at the time of the storm.

Yesterday, Port Hercules and Fontvieille were closed due to floating debris but why haven’t French authorities closed access to the sea for swimmers from Menton and to the west?

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Paul Pettavino

In 2014, Paul Pettavino was a student of mine at the École du Journalisme (EDJ) in Nice. Funny, clever and always the first one to volunteer to participate, whether for the “Today’s News” segment (pictured above) or a game, you would have thought he was like any one of the 74 other young budding journalists of his year. Except Paul had Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and lived in a stand-up power wheelchair.

I was deeply saddened to learn that this lovely young man died shy of his 21st birthday, on Saturday, November 12, 2016.

While other students in my classes would hand in assignments late with the excuse that they couldn’t find printing paper or when confronted about plagiarism would reply, “I couldn’t have plagiarised because my mom wrote my paper”, Paul was battling his physical constraints on a minute-by-minute basis, never complaining. He gave me hope.

His level of English comprehension was higher than most of his peers, and often when I’d make a joke in English under my breath, I would look at him for a response, and be rewarded with a grin.

“We thought we had to help Paul,” Nicolas Allera, a fellow journalism student from Paul’s first year, told me, “but in fact Paul was always helping us. He never put his disease on other people and he was always smiling.”

Open-minded, smart and always telling jokes in class, Nicolas adds that “Paul wanted to show us and himself that he was just a regular kid in the class.”

Another EDJ student, Laura Berlioz, started a “cagnotte”, a donation box, to collect money for the Monegasque Muscular Dystrophy Association (Association Monégasque contre les Myopathies), launched by Paul’s father, Luc, in 2001.

Mr Pettavino, who was managing director the Monaco Yacht Show for 18 years until 2010, is also Chairman of the Board at Synthena, whose aim is to develop life-saving drugs for the treatment of severe neuromuscular diseases in general and Duchenne muscular dystrophy in particular.

The 6th edition of the Only Watch charity auction held November 7, 2015, showcased a collection of “44 exceptional one-off timepieces” including watchmakers Blancpain, Breguet, Chanel, Chopard, Hermès, Patek Philippe and Van Cleef & Arpels.

Paul himself worked with Louis Vuitton four times over the years, designing special watches for the occasion. Last year, his “World is a dance floor” (complete with Night Fever dance floor pattern on the dial, pictured) was a variation of Louis Vuitton’s Escale Worldtime, and in 2013, he created the Tambour Regatta Spin Time watch.

Held at La Réserve in Geneva, Only Watch, which is under the High Patronage of HSH Prince Albert II, raised €10,450,000 in 2015 for DMD research, making it the association’s most successful fundraiser to date.

Paul, who grew up in Monaco and attended Lycée Albert 1er, had many creative outlets. Just over a year ago, he had his first photography exhibition at Le Teashop at Place des Moulins. In a tribute to Jack Kerouac, “On the Road” unveiled a collection of Paul’s photos from a 2014 trip to the US and Canada, where he visited Boston, New York, Washington, Ottawa, Montreal and other cities, with a focus on architecture and urban landscapes. “I wanted to show through my exposition what I discovered,” Paul said in an interview at the opening.

“Paul was truly an exceptional person, a lesson in love and goodness,” Le Teashop owner Sharon Eastwood told me.

A friend of the Pettavino family, Sharon has known Paul and his older sister, Tess, since they were born and used to babysit the two of them.

“Paul was so serene. He was a beautiful, affectionate, extremely kind, radiant, always smiling and a creative spirit,” she adds. “The last time we dined together, we talked about doing the next exhibition at the Teashop on the theme of ‘public benches’. He was very enthusiastic and full of ideas, as usual.

“I am very happy to have had the chance to cross his path and share some nice moments with him. He was very much surrounded with love, he has a great family and I wish them much courage to overcome this painful ordeal.”

Paul’s Facebook page has been painted with touching tributes to such a unique individual, “Such an unfair, destructive illness and yet this young man taught us bravery, the true essence of joy and, of course, the importance of here and now. May Paul Rest In Peace, pain free and fly little angel.”

A private funeral took place on Friday but a remembrance service at 3:30 pm at the Monaco Cathedral was open to all those who wished to celebrate Paul’s life.

Article first published November 16, 2016.

Feature image of Paul Pettavino at the 2015 Monaco Yacht Show. Photo: Facebook OnlyWatchCharityAuction