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 […]
Heavy snow warning for parts of western Switzerland
Swiss Meteo warns of heavy snow tomorrow in the region stretching from Aigle, in Vaud, through to the region around the Grand St. Bernard pass in the canton of Valais. Snow of between 40 cm to 70 cm is expected above 800 m. The affected region includes the Swiss ski resorts of Leysin, Villars, Torgon, Morgin […]
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 […]
Nearly 320,000 cross-border workers in Switzerland
20 Minutes. Foreign residents close to Switzerland’s borders continue to be drawn to the country to work. In 2016, the number of cross-border workers climbed by 11,300 to close to 320,000. After slowing, the number crossing into the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino is on the rise again. In 2011, there were 251,700 crossing into Switzerland […]
Scabies reappears in Swiss schools
20 Minutes. Scabies, a disease also known as the seven year itch, has reappeared in Swiss schools. The contagious skin infection is cased by a mite and is spread through skin contact and occasionally by sharing clothes. In French it is called gale. In german it goes by the name of Krätze. Symptoms include intense itching and a […]
Swiss fact: one in seven Swiss drink no alcohol
A recent report1 shows that around 1 in 7 Swiss drink no alcohol. Of the 13.8% who avoid alcohol completely, 6.5% have avoided it all their lives, while a further 7.3% are former drinkers who haven’t consumed alcohol over the last 12 months. The number of Swiss non-drinkers has climbed since 2011 when only 11.7% […]
New temperature record for Switzerland
Today, 23 February 2017, was the warmest February day ever recorded in Switzerland, according to Meteo News. Several weather stations on the Swiss plateau recorded temperatures exceeded 20 degrees. Normally, temperatures this high do not arrive in Switzerland until the end of April. Temperatures reached 21.2 degrees in Sion (1.4 degrees above the previous record), in […]
Swiss broadcasting fees should not go, says government commission
20 Minutes. Some who move to Switzerland might not be aware that they are almost certainly required to pay one of the world’s highest broadcasting licence fees. An annual Swiss licence costs CHF 451.10 per household. The onus is on you to determine if you are liable, sign up with Billag, a subsidiary of Swisscom, and pay. […]
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 […]
Swiss analysis: Switzerland’s gender pay gap – what the detail reveals
In 2014, the average gross annual salary for a full-time male worker in Switzerland was CHF 81,000, CHF 10,000 or 12.5% higher than that of an average woman. But what does this high level difference mean? Inspired by the Swedish statistician Hans Rosling, who passed away recently, we decided to dig deeper to see what […]
