The Principality Appoints a new Minister of State to Follow on from Serge Telle

The position of Minister of State for Monaco, the equivalent to the position of Prime Minister of France and currently occupied by Serge Telle will have a new incumbent after this summer. The Principality’s next Minister of State is currently well-known as Prefect of the PACA region of France. 

In a statement released this Monday, the Prince’s Palace announced that the Prefect of the PACA region, Pierre Dartout, will succeed Serge Telle as Minister of State on September 1st. Currently he is managing the critical period of confinement in the PACA region. 

Serge Telle has been Minister of State for the Principality since February 1, 2016. He was already well-known to Prince Albert previously in a diplomatic capacity when he served as Ambassador of France to Monaco between January 1st 2006 and June 21st, 2007. 

Traditionally, the Prince of Monaco has chosen his “chief minister” from among prominent candidates in France. Since signing the latest Treaty of Cooperation and Friendship with France in 2005 it is clear that Prince Albert has the way open to appoint a Monegasque to the post if he so wishes, but the choice of Pierre Dartout on this occasion is in sync with the traditional pattern. It is the first time in recent history however that a Prefect from the PACA region has held the post. Prince Albert will, of course, have met Pierre Dartout on several occasions during his travels in the Paca region.

The custom is that France offers Prince Albert a list of candidates and Pierre Dartout will have been someone our Sovereign himself will have had in mind and wished to direct His government. 

Born in 1954 in Limoges, Pierre Dartout, aged 66, is a graduate of IEP Paris and a former student of Ena (promotion Voltaire, notably that of François Hollande and Ségolène Royal ). He has held many positions in the prefectural corps since the start of his career including Aquitaine and Champagne-Ardenne and departments Guyana, Gironde, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, Pyrénées-Orientales, Marne, Val-de-Marne and the Var. He was also director of cabinet to the President of the National Assembly Bernard Accoyer (2007-2008) and interministerial delegate for regional development and competitiveness (2008-2009).

The Palace statement adds: 

“The Sovereign Prince thanks Mr. Serge Telle for his loyalty and his sense of the State throughout the years of his mandate during which the Principality notably pursued its economic development, reinforcing the solidity of its model of society”. 

Prince Albert “will soon pay tribute to the qualities with which he fulfilled his mission”.

With respect to Serge Telle’s focus and mission as current Minister of State he “continues in particular, in the fullness of his responsibilities, in the management of the health crisis and its economic consequences. They require all his energy until the end of his mandate, because of the decisions that must be taken to enable the country to cope this immense challenge.”

Pierre Dartout who will take up the post and take an oath as Minister of State on September 1, at which point, according to the Palace, the Sovereign “expects Mr. Pierre Dartout to direct government action, under his authority, while respecting institutional balance”.