Bordeaux and Palmiers

While I linked Monaco as part of my “France” category, I know that Monaco is not technically part of France. But the French seem to think it is: whenever I spell my last name, they ask me “comme la ville?” “like the city?”

Monaco is a principality, wedged into the French Riviera and ruled by Prince Albert of Monaco, but for all intents and purposes, it is a part of France. Like Vatican City in Rome, it’s fun to travel to this tiny independent state to have your postcards marked by the individual postage stamp of Monaco, but upon arrival, it’s hard to imagine that you ever left the rest of the Côte d’Azur: everyone is rich, the water is deeply blue, and here they revel in tradition, just like in France.

London is famous for its “changing of the guard,” but in Monaco, the ritual is even more drawn out, even more official, even more “French,” for lack of a better word. Watching the changing of the guard in Monaco reminds me of all of the other very official, very bureaucratic French ceremonies, from doing business at the post office to the system of French elections, from the French public school system to the process of application for an entry visa. I can’t help but look at the water of the Monégasque Mediterranean and think of the very same Mediterranean back in Cannes, the coast I know so well. I can’t help thinking of nearby France every time I speak to someone in French, every time I buy something in a store, every time I look at the ritual and ceremony that makes up the changing of the guard.

The Monégasque would like to think they’re independent, distinct from France. I like to think so too, especially because that means that I can buy t-shirts and bags and caps with my last name emblazoned on them for all to see. But I know the truth: Monte Carlo is just a richer, more luxurious Nice, and the name of “principality” is just a formality: the Monégasque are just French in disguise.