The security that Monaco offers is often cited as the number-one reason for living here. The T-word is relegated to second place.
And I find this security to be very reassuring. Also, there is no graffiti. No-one squats in the shelter of U begging for coins – that must be desperately disappointing in the age of debit cards, by the way – and there are no hooligans except for visiting Marseille supporters, who are carefully corralled.
However, sometimes it gets out of hand.
Take the policemen on bikes with woke wording on their backs along the lines of ‘protecting the quality of life.’
A friend of mine was bothered by one of these quality of life enhancers while walking on the digue. I assumed at first he’d been apprehended for not wearing a mask. There wasn’t another soul within 20 metres, by the way.
No, he was stopped and given a fine because his timid fluffy black dog wasn’t, at that moment in time, on a lead.
I happen to think that these petty and over the top enforcements – against legal Residents – do nothing to enhance the quality of life, but rather the opposite.
Later this week I was stopped while crossing the road at Place des Moulins. “You should have crossed at the lights,” the portly policeman said.
Having once lived in California, where jay-walking is on a par with statutory rape, I rather enjoy the freedom of stepping out into the road any time I want to.
When I replied, he said, suspiciously and out of nowhere: “You speak good French.”
Emboldened, I then used the vocabulary of the French president, which didn’t go down well at all. The situation was going downhill fast, but I was saved from being arrested under the useful umbrella of ‘outrage’ when the investigating policeman saw a small boy on an electric scooter on the opposite pavement.
He blew his whistle, stopped the traffic and went over to enhance the youngster’s quality of life by handing out a ticket.
Any views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of the publishers
FILE PHOTO: A ray of sunshine Jack Brodie
