Image copyright AFP Symbol caption Monaco’s Royal Palace: The principality is a solar-drenched tax haven
A French-born aristocrat has asked the French state to pay him €351m (£314m; $401m) in damages, alleging that it tricked his household out of succeeding to the throne of Monaco.
Count Louis de Causans, FORTY FOUR, says that early within the 20th Century France changed the succession regulations to thwart a German declare to the throne.
Mr de Causans informed the French day-to-day Le Parisien that it was an issue of family honour to rectify the “trickery”.
Prince Albert II laws Monaco today.
In a video broadcast through Le Parisien (in French), Mr de Causans said “I Would Like the reality to come back out – I Want reparation for the injustice done to my circle of relatives by way of France”.
Image copyright AFP Image caption Prince Albert II married South African Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock in 2011
The declare centres around Prince Louis II, who reigned in 1922-1949. He was a bachelor, without any professional royal heir, and subsequently underneath the original inheritance regulations he was once ineligible to reign.
Mr de Causans continues that under those regulations his personal department of the Grimaldi family must have succeeded to the throne instead.
But in 1911 a regulation was once handed, beneath French pressure, converting the principles in order that Louis may just reign. He had an illegitimate daughter, Charlotte, and the new legislation enabled her to be adopted through Louis, thus getting round the succession downside. Charlotte was born of a passionate liaison among Louis and a cabaret singer, Marie-Juliette Louvet.
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on the time the good European powers had been in an palms race that was the carnage of global War I in 1914.
Mr de Causans says the succession will need to have long gone to a German nobleman from his personal department of the circle of relatives – Wilhelm, the second Duke of Urach, who was Louis’ cousin.
The lawyer, Jean-Marc Descoubès, stated that “it used to be with ease unacceptable for a German to reign over Monaco then, at the eve of the primary Global Battle”.
“We known the accountability of the French govt,” he instructed the BBC.
“there have been secret conferences in Paris and Monaco among the French ambassador and Monaco government, they signed a secret pact. i have some proof, and will provide it to the courtroom if the French govt does not need to pay.”
When asked why Mr de Causans had handiest decided to make his claim now, he said the past due Prince Rainier III – Albert’s predecessor – had “blocked everything” all over his reign. He died in 2005.
Rainier had barred Mr de Causans and his side of the Grimaldi circle of relatives from coming into Monaco, the attorney mentioned.
The €351m determine for the claim resulted from the calculations of attorneys and accountants, primarily based at the Grimaldi fortune and Mr de Causans’s age, he said.
