Albert's time to step out of shadows

PARIS - After more than half a century of stability and growing prosperity, the principality of Monaco may be heading for bumpier waters after the death of its sovereign, Prince Rainier.

Rainier, 81, will be buried on Saturday. He died last week after a battle against respiratory, renal and cardiac problems.

He was not only popular for his devotion to the job but also widely praised for his astuteness.

In the course of his 55-year spell on the throne, the longest in modern European monarchy, Rainier transformed Monaco.

At the start of his reign, the 2sq km statelet was a fading resort, dependent on the gaming tables for nine-tenths of its income - "a sunny place for shady people" in the words of British author W. Somerset Maugham.

Rainier liberalised tax and corporate laws to lure foreign billionaires and banks, reclaimed land from the sea - expanding Monaco's area by more than a fifth - planted a forest of high-rise offices and apartments and encouraged the rise of a vibrant convention and tourism industry.

Today, Monaco - the second smallest independent state in the world, with just 32,000 people, 26,000 of them foreign residents - has a gross national product of more than US$900 million, only 5 per cent of which is derived from gambling.

Fifty-three banks and financial establishments are located there, a figure triple that of 20 years ago. They manage assets worth 60 billion, an amount that has doubled in the past five years. There is no unemployment, nor is there income tax, except for French nationals.

But Rainier generated more than just wealth: he brought glamour, with his marriage to movie star Grace Kelly.

Her Hollywood connections ensured that Monaco became the playground for the rich and famous and the unavoidable backdrop for Riviera movies.

Thanks to her skills, Monaco also established itself as a media centre, with a powerful radio station and Europe's top television festival, became a magnet for racing fans with its Formula One Grand Prix that winds through its streets, and hosted an internationally famous circus festival.

So the question is whether Rainier's remarkable combination of showman and businessman can be repeated in his son Albert, the scion of the Grimaldi dynasty.

Albert, 47, has nourished the newspaper columns for years. Yet to his subjects and the wider world he remains an enigma.

"One may wonder if Prince Albert will have the same manipulative skill, the same machiavellism, the same authority as his father," the weekly French news magazine L'Express said. But the question cannot be answered, given that the new sovereign has always been sidelined from the running of his country.

Tall and balding, the Prince is variously stereotyped as a simple-minded sports jock; an incisive businessman; quiet and unassuming; a partying playboy; or, as the rumour mill has it, a closet gay.

His sisters Caroline and Stephanie were given wide latitude when they were growing up, but Albert received a typical heir-to-the-throne upbringing.

He went to smart and expensive schools in Monaco and the United States, gaining a BA in political science at Amherst College, Massachusetts; was taught German, Italian and Spanish to add to his English and French; served a spine-stiffening six months as a junior officer with the French Navy aboard the helicopter carrier Jeanne d'Arc; and then gained business experience, with the Morgan Guaranty bank in New York, and the luxury goods house Moet-Hennessy in Paris.

After this, he was named to head a series of charity organisations or as Monaco's envoy abroad, enabling him to stretch his wings. But he was never allowed to make decisions of real importance and always remained in his father's shadow.

Armchair psychologists note that when Albert speaks French - the language of his stern father - he often stammers nervously, but his English, taught to him by his adoring mother, is relaxed and fluent.

Albert faces a double challenge when he fully takes up the reins of office. One is short-term, and focuses on Monaco Inc, the business entity.

Despite various measures taken by the artful Rainier in the past three years, the principality still has not shaken off a reputation as a haven for tax-dodgers and money-launderers.

In the coming months, Albert will have to soothe ill-feeling in France about the drain on French fiscal revenue. And he will have to decide whether to make peace with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Paris-based rich nations club, which has placed Monaco on a blacklist of countries suspected of abetting tax evasion.

The other challenge is long-term and intangible: maintaining the Grimaldis' prestige and keeping the glamour quotient high.

And, with the legend of Rainier and Grace in so many minds, Albert will be under growing pressure to marry and have children so the Grimaldi fairytale keeps going. Rainier's shade will linger for a long time to come.