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| Prince Mihailo and Princess Geneviève of Montenegro |
On 7 July 1944, Prince Nicholas (Nikola) Michael Francis of Montenegro was born at Saint-Nicolas-du-Pelem, as the only child of Prince Michael (Mihailo) of Montenegro and his wife Geneviève. Prince Mihailo (1908-1986) and Geneviève Prigent (1919-1990) had married at Paris on 27 January 1941. The pair were interned in Germany from 1941 until 1943 by the Nazis; when they were released, they returned to France, where their son was born. In 1947, Mihailo, Geneviève, and Nikola moved to Yugoslavia as Mihailo had accepted a position in Tito’s Foreign Ministry – a position he left in 1948. The family then returned to Paris, where Mihailo and Geneviève’s marriage ended.
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| Crown Prince Nikola of Montenegro |
Upon the couple’s divorce in 1949, their son Nikola was raised by his mother and rarely saw his father. Geneviève worked as an orthoptist and raised Nikola as a single mother at Trebeurden. In 1964, Nikola became a student at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris; in 1971, he obtained a diploma in Architecture and admitted to the Société Française des Architectes.
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| Crown Princess Francine of Montenegro |
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| Crown Prince Nikola and Crown Princess Francine of Montenegro |
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| Nikola and Francine of Montenegro with their children Altinaï and Boris |
On 27 November 1976, Prince Nikola of Montenegro married Francine Navarro (b.Casablanca 27 January 1950), daughter of Antoine Navarro (1922-1989) and Rachel Wazana (1930-2011). Francine studied law and later worked for many decades as a designer at the fashion house that she co-founded, Petrovitch & Robinson. Nikola forged his career as an architect. Nikola and Francine have two children: Princess Altinaï (b.1977; married to Anton Martynov) and Prince Boris (b.1980; married to Véronique Haillot Canas da Silva). Crown Princess Francine passed away in 2008, aged fifty-eight.
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| Hereditary Prince Boris and Hereditary Princess Véronique of Montenegro with eldest daughter Princess Milena |
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| Crown Prince Nikola of Montenegro with his daughter Princess Altinaï |
The family returned to Montenegro in 1989 for the reburial of Nikola’s great-grandfather and great-grandmother, King Nikola I and Queen Milena of Montenegro. In 2011, Crown Prince Nikola and his family were granted special status by the Montenegrin government; the legislation that was approved by the nation’s parliament provides the family with an annual allowance as well as a residence in the country. Crown Prince Nikola now divides his time between Montenegro and France.
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