THE people of Monaco swore their allegiance to Prince Albert II as their new ruler at his investiture yesterday, seven months after the death of Rainier III, his father.

However, Europe’s A list royalty and top state officials are staying away from the three days of ceremonies in a sign that the 47-year-old prince has yet to earn his spurs as a national leader. With his sisters, Caroline and Stephanie, looking on in the palace throne room, Albert received the oath from Jean-Paul Proust, the former Paris police chief who became Minister of State, equivalent to Prime Minister, last year .

“I am profoundly touched by your homage,” the Prince said before embracing his sisters. The Earl and Countess of Wessex are among the most senior royalty scheduled to attend a Mass in Monaco’s cathedral tomorrow, which is the equivalent to a coronation.

The Spanish Royal Family, unhappy over Prince Albert’s doubts about Madrid’s bid for the 2012 Olympics, is sending no one. The Prince upset Madrid by questioning the city’s security when its bid was reviewed by the International Olympic Committee.

A bevy of young princes and princesses from Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg and Morocco are coming to Monaco, along with junior ministers and ambassadors for a dozen nations. France, which provides Monaco’s services and civil servants, is sending Pascal Clément, the Justice Minister, after Philippe Douste-Blazy, the Foreign Minister, cancelled to attend to more pressing business. The modest VIP turnout partly reflected the fact that the diffident, unmarried son of the late Grace Kelly, the Hollywood star, has not yet shown that he can fill his late father’s shoes or carry out his promises to clean up the principality’s image as a safe haven for shady money. His image among ruling families has not been helped by the disclosure last summer that he is the father of a two-year-old illegitimate son by a Togolese-born flight attendant.

But the new prince is popular among Monaco’s 32,000 residents, who enjoy the most crime-free and lowest-tax society in Europe. A force of more than 700 police and 350 closed-circuit television cameras guarantee the security of the city. However, les monégasques, the locals who make up only a fifth of the population, are questioning his ability to match his father, a tough chief executive who in five decades transformed Monaco from a puny backwater to a world financial and business centre.

Reflecting local hostility, France Soir yesterday called Albert an awkward leader, who was “so smooth that he seems insipid, so nice that he seems ill-fitted for intellectual combat”. The prince, who was educated in the United States, addressed his personality on US television last month. Acknowledging a hesitant, stuttering style, he said: “It is because I always try to look for the best possible word and sometimes it doesn’t always come.”

Supporters say that Prince Albert has been acting firmly but quietly to shake up secretive administration and tackle its persistent reputation as a money-laundering centre. Despite reforms by Rainier III, the principality remains on the list of “unco-operative tax havens” maintained by the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development.

“We have to go back to deal with this image of Monaco as not a transparent place in which to do business,” the Prince said in a television interview with Larry King.

His reply to King’s question was typically inarticulate: “Ethics have a lot to do with this on the way we or the Government of Monaco, conducts business and how we allow people to — especially in the financial sector that’s been under a lot of scrutiny these past few years, and that we will not tolerate any wrongdoings. Both in money laundering or any other illegal financial transaction.”

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