20 Minutes. According to 20 Minutes, a Swiss court recently ruled that a 55 year-old Spanish citizen with a long criminal record, must leave Switzerland. The man found himself in front of a judge for the first time at the age of 17 for bodily injury. Following that he was tried for theft, drug offenses, […]
Anti-cowbell campaigner eventually gets Swiss passport
According to the Aargauer Zeitung, Nancy Holten, a 43 year old dutch citizen who had her Swiss citizenship application rejected twice by the commune of Gipf-Oberfick where she lives with her three Swiss daughters, recently learned that the canton of Aargau had overruled the commune’s decision, clearing the way for her to become a Swiss citizen. […]
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 […]
Immigrants make up 61% of Geneva’s population
Tribune de Genève. 42% of Geneva’s residents are not Swiss citizens, the highest level of any Swiss canton. When naturalised foreigners are added this percentage it rises to 61%. This compares to an average of 36% across Switzerland. Of the 61% over 15 years old with foreign roots, 40% have Swiss citizenship while the other […]
Swiss parliamentarian wants to stop distribution of the Quran
Le Matin. According to Swiss newspapers, Walter Wobman, a national councillor and member of the Swiss People’s Party (UDC/SVP), would like to prevent distribution of the Quran in Switzerland. He told the newspapers Ostschweiz am Sonntag and Zentralschweiz am Sonntag: “It should not be possible to distribute books as extreme as the Quran, which attack […]
Racism sentence upheld against former Swiss People’s Party secretary general
On 13 April 2017, the Swiss Federal Tribunal upheld a sentence against the former secretary general and deputy of the Swiss People’s Party (UDC/SVP). According to a Federal Tribunal press release, in 2011, during the campaign leading up to the Swiss vote on whether to halt mass immigration, an advertisement carrying the text “Kosovaren schlitzen […]
Swiss naturalisation to get tougher in Vaud
20 Minutes. The canton of Vaud needs to make naturalisation tougher in response to changes to federal law. The government of Vaud is trying to retain some room to manoeuvre but wiggle room is set to be limited. Last week, Philippe Leuba, Vaud’s head of the economy and sport, told the press that the draft bill dealing with naturalisation […]
At last year’s growth rate Switzerland’s population would double in 64 years
20 Minutes. Switzerland’s population rose by 90’600 in 2016, more than the population of the city of Luzern or the combined populations of the cities of Nyon, Neuchâtel and Yverdon. The 1.1% increase brings the number of permanent residents at the end of 2016 to 8,417,700. If this growth rate of 1.1% were extrapolated forward […]
Four of the five women fined for wearing full veil since start of ban are Swiss
20 Minutes. On 1 July 2016, Ticino became the first Swiss canton to ban full veils or full covering of the face in public. Since then only six transgressions have been recorded by the canton’s police. Of the six, one was issued to a Saudi national who quickly paid the CHF 100 sum, said the […]
The number of solo parents rises in Switzerland with big variances across cantons
Between 2014 and 2015 the number of solo parents rose 11,500 (+5.6%) bringing the total to 218,000. Single parent families made up 6% of Swiss households in 2015, according to statistics released this week. The percentages vary significantly by canton. The cantons with the highest rates of of solo mums and dads are Geneva (8.7%), Neuchâtel (8.0%), […]
