In December last year, Le News’ former editor, the Swiss-American journalist Edward Girardet, wrote an article entitled “Why the Swiss need to value their foreigners”. After being rejected by a number of Swiss newspapers, it was published by swissinfo.ch, part of Switzerland’s national broadcaster, before being taken down six hours later. Le News interviewed Edward yesterday to challenge some […]
Paris Hilton wants to become Swiss
20 Minuten. Paris Hilton feels right at home in Switzerland. She even wants a Swiss passport. On 9 December 2015, Paris Hilton went in person to the Schindellegi commune office, in the canton of Schwyz, to announce her residency. Speaking to the newspaper Blick she said “I just love everything about this country…the people are so […]
UKIP leader Farage to meet Swiss People’s Party member in Bern
Tribune de Genève. Nigel Farage, the leader of the eurosceptic UK independence party (UKIP), will visit Bern this Friday. The former commodity broker and member of the European Union (EU) parliament, co-chairs the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group (EFDD) in Brussels. Farage and his EFDD colleagues will meet Yves Nidegger, a member of the Swiss People’s […]
Swiss parliament wants to strip terrorists of their Swiss passports
Tribune de Geneve. Dual nationals implicated in terrorist activities or who leave to fight in the name of jihad, should be stripped of their Swiss nationality. The Swiss National Council voted in favour of a UDC (SVP) parliamentary initiative of this nature by 102 votes against 85 on Monday. The initiative’s text, put forward previously by […]
Switzerland turns away hundreds of Afghan refugees
Tribune de Genève. Around 1,800 refugees have been intercepted trying to cross into Switzerland over the last four weeks, and almost a quarter have been sent back to Germany, which has a policy of favouring Syrians. Swiss border guards have stopped around 1,800 refugees along Switzerland’s northern border over the last four weeks. 444 have been […]
French police search homes of Geneva mosque imams
Tribune de Genève. Last night the French authorities searched the french homes of two imams associated with the mosque in Petit-Saconnex in Geneva, who live in the french town of Ferney-Voltaire not far from Geneva. The wave of searches across France, since the country declared a state of emergency following the attacks in Paris, has now […]
Swiss canton of Ticino passes law that bans burka
Le Matin. According to the Swiss newspaper Le Matin, from now on it is forbidden to cover your face in a public space in the Italian-speaking Swiss canton of Ticino. Following a successful popular vote to ban face covering in public in the canton in September 2013, the Canton’s government has now approved changes to […]
New Swiss vote on EU immigration gets official go ahead
In December last year a group called RASA – an acronym for “out of the dead end” in German (Raus aus der Sackgasse), started collecting signatures for a popular vote that would serve as a Plan B should EU negotiations fail with Brussels over the 9 February 2014 vote to limit immigration from EU countries. […]
A jihadist could lose his Swiss nationality
20 Minutes. For the first time the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) is considering taking the Swiss passport from a dual national who went to do jihad in Syria. The SEM opened an inquiry, which can be found in the recent federal task force report on terrorism. “When an individual has their Swiss nationality […]
A look inside the IKEA houses Switzerland plans to use for refugees
20 Minutes. Instead of housing refugees in army tents, one Swiss canton has decided to experiment with flat-pack IKEA houses. They cost around CHF 1,000 and can be put up in four hours. With a floor area of 17.5 m2, each one is designed to shelter five people. One of the biggest problems with tents […]
