20 – 21 May 2017 One Saturday evening a year, Geneva opens its museums, workshops, and gardens until midnight. This year, the event starts on the evening of Saturday 20 May 2017, runs into the night, and continues on Sunday the 21st. The event is spread over 31 locations, together offering 240 activities. Not to be missed, the event […]
Swiss naturalisation to get much cheaper in Geneva
20 Minutes. For those wanting to become Swiss, Geneva will no longer charge based on income. For some the price will be a less than a third of what they’d pay now. On Wednesday, the cantonal government announced that the fees will change on 1 June 2017. Currently the total cost ranges from CHF 930 […]
International Geneva to get a 3 billion franc facelift
Tribune de Genève. Plans are afoot to invest close to CHF 3 billion across 15 sites across Geneva over the next few years, according to Tribune de Genève. Not only will existing buildings be renovated and extended, schools, apartments and new transport infrastructure will be added. “Over the next five years, we are going to invest […]
Swiss federal tribunal refuses to help French tax authorities
Tribune de Genève. The French tax authorities will not get Swiss help to investigate tax payers identified in data taken by Hervé Falciani from HSBC private bank in Geneva. HSBC, owner of the private bank in Geneva, which became part of HSBC in 1999 when it was acquired from Republic National Bank, a group run by Lebanese-born financier […]
Women can now swim topless in Geneva
Le Matin. From now on women in Geneva will be allowed to swim topless in the lake and any of the canton’s rivers, including the Rhône. According to Meteo News, the water in Lake Geneva is a chilly 12 degrees, so it may be a while before the new rule has any practical value. A rule […]
Where Geneva’s new gondola might go
Le Matin. Grenoble, Medellín, Caracas, and Rio all have gondolas, and New York is planning one. Now Geneva wants one too. Last week Geneva’s Grand Council accepted a plan, put forward by the Greens, to investigate the feasibility of a cable car transport network. Geneva’s department of transport (DETA) has already looked at several gondola proposals, which […]
How French communes near Geneva are combatting residence fraud
Antoine Vielliard, the mayor of the French commune Saint-Julien-en-Genevois, which borders the canton of Geneva, is after those who live in France but pretend to live in Geneva. In a radio interview on Swiss broadcaster RTS, he explains how they estimate the level of fraud and how they are combatting it. Across neighbouring France an […]
Geneva plans to offer permits to thousands of illegal immigrants
Tribune de Genève. After more than 15 years, Geneva State councillor Pierre Maudet unveiled a plan code named operation Papyrus. The operation was negotiated with Switzerland’s federal government to regularise some of Geneva’s illegal immigrants, mainly domestic workers. Under the operation, 590 residence permits have already been granted. Pierre Maudet said “Papyrus is a roadmap for […]
Geneva has Switzerland’s worst traffic, ranking ahead of New York
The satellite navigation company TomTom, has collected over 14 trillion measurements from over 450 million GPS devices around the world, crunched the data, and worked out which cities have the worst traffic congestion. The latest ranking is based on 2016 data. Mexico city had the worst traffic congestion. The average time lost to traffic there […]
Should streets be closed to cars to let children play?
20 Minutes. Elected member of the Green Party, Alfonso Gomez, would like to see some of Geneva’s streets closed to cars on Wednesdays and Sundays to give children more space to run around. Gomez, cites a study by Pro Juventute, which calculates that an average city kid spent 3 to 4 hours running around outside […]
