Biography of Xavier Prache

Xavier Prache

Xavier Prache, nouveau directeur des Explorations de Monaco lors de sa prise de fonction. 4 septembre 2023©Michel Dagnino. Institut océanographique
A graduate of the Ecole du Commissariat de la Marine (1992), Xavier Prache has spent his entire career in the French Army. His career took him to La Réunion, Brest, Cherbourg, Toulon and Monaco, where he was seconded to the Principality of Monaco to serve as aide-de-camp to H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco between 2011 and 2012. After a career as a naval superintendent, Xavier Prache joined the Société des Explorations de Monaco, serving on board French Navy vessels or ashore in staff positions or joint organizations.

Xavier Prache is a French naval officer who graduated from the Naval Commissariat School.

After graduating from the naval officers’ training school aboard the helicopter carrier JEANNE D’ARC, he chose to serve in the Indian Ocean as superintendent of the mobile support ship GARONNE, stationed on Reunion Island. In 1993, he became superintendent of the Port des Galets naval base and chief of staff to the naval commander on Réunion. He returned to the helicopter carrier “JEANNE D’ARC” in 1994 as chief of staff to the commander, and was assigned to the naval officers’ training group in 1995 as training superintendent for the frigate “GERMINAL”, designated as the training ship’s “conserve”. Appointed chief of staff to the admiral commanding the naval action force in 1996, he embarked several times on board the aircraft carrier “FOCH”, the frigate “TOURVILLE” and the landing craft transport “FOUDRE” to take part in multinational joint exercisesAfter a career as a naval commissioner aboard French Navy vessels, Xavier Prache took up the position of head of human resources at the Brest naval commissariat in 1998, as well as private secretary to the director. Here, he introduced forward-looking workforce management and an appropriate training policy for civilian staff. In 2001, he returned to Reunion Island as head of the finance division of the overseas commissariat of the armed forces of the southern Indian Ocean zone. He oversaw the transition to the single European currency for all the armed forces.In 2003, he joined the eleventh graduating class of the inter-army defense college, before taking up the post of head of the State Action at Sea Division, reporting to the Maritime Prefect for the Channel and North Sea in Cherbourg. With the transfer of the Naval Commissariat Officers’ School to Brest – Crozon peninsula – in 2005, he was appointed second-in-command and Director of Education. He was involved in the initial development of a common initial training program for commissaires, and welcomed the first class of students to the school, a precursor to the future school for army commissaires. In 2008, he returned to the “JEANNE D’ARC” helicopter carrier for the last time. He will be in charge of decommissioning work in the areas relevant to the Commissariat when the training ship returns from its final application campaign.

After joining the human resources policy office of the naval staff in Paris in 2010, he was seconded to the Principality of Monaco in 2011 to serve as aide-de-camp to His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco.

In 2012, he joined the Centre Interarmées d’Administration des Opérations, the administrative and financial support arm of the Service du Commissariat des Armées, as deputy director. In 2013, he was appointed director of the overseas commissariat in Fort de France and head of the Antilles defense base support group. There, he is responsible for supporting the armed forces in Martinique and Guadeloupe, as well as acting as contracting authority and executing department. On his return in 2015, he became the first head of the administration and joint support office of the naval staff, acting as the interface between the army commissariat and the navy.

From 2017 to 2021, he was director of the southeast purchasing-finance platform in Toulon, which became the southern commissariat platform in 2019. On August 27, 2021, he took command of the Toulon defense base support group.

He is a Knight of the Legion of Honor and of Maritime Merit, and an Officer of the National Order of Merit.