Rainier’s Tiny State : Monaco: No Joke to Loyal Citizenry

It is easy to mock Monaco.

It is, after all:

--A tiny sovereign state, anachronistically ruled by a powerful prince who has enough time on his hands to spend five days presiding over the jury at the International Festival of the Circus.

--A sunlit and cliff-shaded beach resort whose princesses monopolize the covers of the glossiest French magazines.

--A rich, crime-free small town whose wealth once derived from the best-known gambling casino in all Europe.

--A Mediterranean yacht port filled with foreigners who escape income taxes while driving their Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Ferraris.

Not Always Understood

Yet any mood of mockery dissipates against the reality. The people of Monaco take their principality, its governmental system and their Prince Rainier III seriously. They believe that their tiny state works, and they are united by feelings and ties that are not always understood by an outsider.

“We are like a family here,” Georges Grinda, Monaco’s comptroller of the budget, explained in a recent interview in the bar of the elegant Hotel de Paris. “When the Prince was in sorrow, we wept for him.”

It has been almost five years since Princess Grace, who had been the American movie actress Grace Kelly before her marriage, died of a stroke after an auto accident. Yet Grinda could recall that time vividly.

“I still remember the mask of sorrow on the Prince’s face,” he said.

Then his own face suddenly twisted and trembled. He began to sob uncontrollably at the memory.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

But he could not stop for more than a minute.

4,500 Monegasques

In much the same way, a skeptical outsider may have many doubts about the undemocratic political system of Monaco. But these doubts are shared by no more than a handful of the Monegasques, as the 4,500 citizens of Monaco are known.

Charles Soccal, the 64-year-old Communist who heads the Federation of Trade Unions of Monaco, was elected twice to the National Council, the limited legislative body of the principality, in the 1960s and 1970s as the single voice of opposition to Prince Rainier.

“Our system is archaic, depasse ,” Soccal said in an interview in his office.

“We have a prince who derives his power from God,” he went on, enjoying his sarcasm. “People worship him as if he can bring rain and make the wheat grow.

“I would not mind keeping him as chief of state,” Soccal said, “but only if we democratized the system and put the sovereignty of our country where it belongs, in the hands of the voters.”

Soccal smiled at some of his own ideas.

“I have never advocated running into the streets, storming the palace, and putting the head of the prince on a pole,” he said. “I have only advocated change through democratic ways.

“But, as you can see, not many people agree with me. I represent a very small minority. I was defeated in 1978 and never elected again. Even some of the Monegasques who voted for me did not accept my philosophy but only voted for me to protest some grievance or another.”

Monaco, which is made up of the medieval town of Monaco and the more modern town of Monte Carlo, is a state like no other in the world. Less than a square mile in area, it is bordered on all sides but its seafront by France and set in one of the loveliest coves of the Riviera, only 13 miles from Italy.

Carefully Watched

Monaco’s total population comes to 27,000, the foreigners outnumbering the Monegasques by 5 to 1. Its economy employs 22,000 people, two out of three commuting from their homes in France and Italy every day. France recognizes the sovereignty of Monaco but limits it and also watches the principality carefully.

To understand Monaco, an outsider must think of the prince and the principality in a kind of mutually beneficial relationship. Without the prince and his dynasty, Monaco, even if it managed to maintain independence, would have very little that is distinctive about it.

“Without the prince,” Grinda said, “I do not believe that Monaco would exist. We would become no more than a museum city.”

On the other hand, the princely family would have very little if Monaco were no more than a small beach resort on the Riviera. Prince Rainier and his predecessors have tried to make Monaco, in a sense, larger than life, infusing it with a culture and an economy and an international standing that no other town of 27,000 can boast.

Heavily Subsidized

Lawrence Foster, the Los Angeles-born conductor of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Monte Carlo, explained over lunch recently that his orchestra, which has existed for more than a century, is heavily subsidized by the principality.

“If it were left to the people in government,” Foster said, “they might cut out the money for culture, but the prince insists on it. A great deal of money is spent on culture here. That helps justify Monaco’s existence.”

The princely family of the Grimaldis has managed to maintain some measure of control over Monaco for almost all of more than five centuries, although at different times it has been forced to accept the protection of larger powers such as the city of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, Spain and France. After the French Revolution, France did annex Monaco, but the tiny state regained its independence 21 years later as new borders were carved out in Europe following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815.

The most spectacular act of the Grimaldi family in the 20th Century was probably the marriage of Prince Rainier to Grace Kelly of Philadelphia in 1956, ensuring a large place for Monaco on the world stage. Her death in 1982 raised fears that the lights of Monaco would start to dim, but most Monegasques insist that life here has not changed very much since then.

Many Visit Tomb

She is buried in the crypt for the princes and princesses of the Grimaldi family in the Roman Catholic cathedral not far from the palace in the old town of Monaco, and many visitors come to the cathedral to spend time before her tomb.

In the last year or so, the European press has discovered her daughter, 22-year-old Princess Stephanie, whose first pop record “Ouragan” (Hurricane) was the top seller in France last year and whose topless poses with her Los Angeles boyfriend Mario Jutard on the beaches of Mauritius were featured in a French scandal sheet earlier this year.

Less, although substantial, press attention is devoted to her sister, Princess Caroline, 30, married twice and the mother of two children, and Prince Albert, 28, being groomed by his father to take over the throne some day.

There is little doubt that Rainier, now 63, white-haired and a little paunchy, is the political power of Monaco.

Limited by Constitution

“In a country like France,” explained Grinda, who has written a textbook on the institutions of Monaco, “sovereignty rests with the people. Here it rests with the prince. But he is a constitutional monarch limited by the constitution. He cannot do whatever he wants.”

Yet no monarch in Europe has more constitutional authority. The prince appoints a government, made up of a French civil servant and three bureaucratic counselors, that can never be thrown out of office by the parliamentary National Council. Only the prince and his government can propose laws. The National Council, now made up of 18 members who are all supporters of the prince, has no more than the right, rarely used, to reject proposed legislation.

There is some public debate over urban matters. The state of Monaco and the municipality of Monaco cover the same territory, and there are conflicts from time to time between the National Council and the Municipal Council. If the state refuses to back down, however, the municipality, under the constitution, loses. But usually a compromise is reached.

In the last couple of years, the municipality has won an argument over the size of the underground parking garage under construction in the Casino Square, while the state won an argument over the size and uses of the fire station under construction at the harbor. Neither were burning political issues.

“They were simply differences of opinion over management,” said Mayor Jean-Louis Medecin in an interview at his City Hall office.

Politics are so quiescent in Monaco that no one bothered to oppose Medecin and his slate of 14 candidates for the Municipal Council in the latest elections last Sunday.

For almost a century, the reputation and economy of Monaco were based on gambling. It became a cliche in the United States to sing about the man “who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.”

All this derived from a decision by an impoverished Prince Charles III in the 19th Century to stimulate the economy by building a casino at a time when gambling was still illegal in France. To hide the prince’s intent in a puritanical era, the company set up to fund a casino and hotels for gamblers was called “The Sea Bathing Company and Circle of Foreigners.”

After several successful years in a smaller building, a lavish, elegant casino, complete with an opera house, was built by the architect Charles Garnier in 1878 on a hill that was christened Monte Carlo in honor of the prince. The fame of Monaco was ensured.

‘Scum of Continents’

In 1887, the French author Guy de Maupassant found around the gaming tables “the scum of continents and society, mixed with princes or future kings, with women of the world, the bourgeoisie, money lenders, and exhausted girls, a mixture unique on Earth.”

Gambling and The Sea Bathing Company still exist, although the interior splendor of the old casino with its chandeliers and lavishly sculptured walls has been obscured a good deal by the neon-bright slot machines and American blackjack and craps tables that now fill some of the rooms. The gambling income of Monaco, in fact, is about the same as that from all the 140 casinos now legal in France. The Sea Bathing Company, controlled by the Monaco government, employs more workers than any other organization in the principality except the government itself.

But gambling is hardly the mainstay of the Monaco economy any more. Fees from the gambling concession, which once supplied most of the Monaco treasury, will account for no more than 5% of the government’s budget of $372 million in 1987.

The economy of Monaco depends instead on banks and boutiques that cater to the wealthy foreigners who have found a warm and pleasant tax haven there, on tourism services that deal as much with annual conventions as with rich gamblers and bathing beauties and on a growing colony of chemical plants and other light industries.

New Economy Reflected

The numerous high-rise apartments of Monte Carlo that now face the sea and block the view of some of the old mansions in the hills reflect the new economy of Monaco.

One of the most enduring questions about tiny Monaco and its prince are just how independent they really are. Under a treaty of 1918, France recognizes the sovereignty of Monaco “so long as it is exercised in conformity with the political, military, naval and economic interests of France.” The treaty described France’s relationship with Monaco as one of “protective friendship.”

Monaco sends ambassadors to the Vatican, Paris and a few European capitals and is a member of the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), but France has never allowed it to apply to the United Nations itself.

Under a written agreement, the minister of state of Monaco, the official who heads the prince’s government, must be a French civil servant. The prince selects the civil servant from a list of three nominated by the French government. Various other posts such as the chief of police and the chief judge of the supreme court are filled by French civil servants.

“This does make our position seem somewhat ambiguous,” Grinda conceded. “But the minister of state, once appointed, is a civil servant of the prince, not of the French government. Monaco pays his salary, and the prince has the power to appoint and dismiss him.”

Rainier did dismiss the minister of state 25 years ago in a row with President Charles de Gaulle over an attempt by the prince to stop France from trying to buy control of the radio and television company in Monaco.

Faced with all the economic controls of France on his borders, Rainier had to back down and sign new agreements with France. The agreements ended the use of Monaco as a tax haven for French citizens and companies.

There has been no friction since then, but France remains the main limit on the power of Rainier. From a constitutional point of view, the prince is the most powerful monarch in Europe, but only so long as he does not irritate France.