French press could face legal action after photographing royals’ holiday

A French magazine has risked the prospect of legal action from the Prince and Princess of Wales after publishing private photographs of the pair on a private ski holiday with their three children.

It is thought that no formal complaint has yet been made, but the royal couple consider their privacy paramount on such breaks, particularly when it comes to their offspring.

The pair have a history of run-ins with French magazines after Closer published topless photos of the Princess on holiday in the Luberon region of south-east France in 2012. A Paris court later found the publication guilty of an invasion of privacy.

British newspapers and broadcasters refrain from publishing such pictures out of respect for the couple’s privacy.

However, in what it described as an “exclusive”, Paris Match published photographs of the royals on its front page, showing the pair relaxing on what appeared to be the terrace of a chalet in Courchevel, an upmarket French Alpine resort.

The magazine claimed the family had been coming to the resort “in total discretion” for the past 15 years. It was said to have been their second holiday to the Alps in the past three months.

Paris Match also published of a smiling Prince William in shorts and a sweatshirt outside the chalet, waving a bottle of wine at his wife and children.

The magazine said: “Back from skiing for Kate, Charlotte, 9, Louis, 6 and George, 11. In William’s hand a bottle of wine that the instructor just offered them. In their private chalet on April 3.

“Total relaxation, far from the protocol of Buckingham [Palace]. That’s how the princely couple sees holidays”.

It also reported that the family had been travelling between Norfolk, Mustique Island and Courchevel.

“In swimming trunks [in] early January, in the Caribbean where they possess a sumptuous villa, in skiwear late March for their second stint in this most British of French ski resorts of the year,” the magazine said.

Family ‘extremely discreet’

Other pictures showed the Princess of Wales “following the progress” of her two younger children, Prince Louis and Princess Charlotte, while another image was of Prince George skiing with his father.

“Far from her health problems, Kate and her little princes on the careless pistes,” the magazine said in the caption, referring to the Princess’s recent cancer scare and wish to focus on “simple things”.

A further photograph showed the Prince of Wales sitting alone on a ski lift, getting a “taste of solitude at the summit … his nose in his mobile phone”. He returned earlier than the rest of the family “to work”, the magazine added.

“An heir to the throne of England, and what’s more, first in line, is never free for very long.”

Another image showed the Princess slightly off balance while she waited to get on a ski lift.

“Given their helmets and masks, there is little chance of recognising them,” Paris Match said, adding that while Prince Harry had previously enjoyed going to Klosters with his father in Switzerland, Courchevel was now the chosen resort of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

The magazine reported that its locals had been tight-lipped about their presence. “We knew they were there, but few of us actually saw them,” one ski lift member of staff was quoted as saying. The magazine said the couple were extremely discreet and had few security personnel.

It added that the “normal” family used the ski slopes like any other skiers and never asked to privatise lifts or slopes, unlike King Juan Carlos of Spain who in the 1980s “never took ski lifts and went up by helicopter”.

The magazine quoted an employee at a restaurant the family often ate at as saying: “They looked happy to be here.” Their French was also deemed to be “perfectly good”.

Fury over previous intrusion

The Prince and Princess of Wales were said to have been furious when the indecent photos of Catherine were published in 2012.

Closer magazine’s lawyers had sought to justify the publication on public interest grounds, claimed the photographs had disproved rumours circulating at the time that she might be anorexic.

However, a Paris court handed the maximum fine of €45,000 to both Laurence Pieau, an editor of Closer’s French edition, and Ernesto Mauri, chief executive of Italian publisher Mondadori, the magazine’s owner.

Two photographers from a Paris-based agency, who denied taking the pictures, were also ordered to pay smaller fines after also being convicted under French privacy laws.

The damages ordered by the court were well short of the €1.5 million sought by the royal couple, who at the time described the incident as a “grotesque” breach of privacy.

The incident rekindled memories for some of Prince William’s mother, Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997 while being chased by paparazzi.

Kensington Palace declined to comment.