Dear Swiss Abroad,
Welcome to our selection of the most important stories from Switzerland this week.
It was the Long Night of Zurich Museums last Saturday (pictured is part of the Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich), but for one Zurich resident it was a particularly long week. Politician Sanija Ameti resigned on Monday after making a spectacularly poor choice of target during a shooting exercise – unintentionally, she claims – and is now under police protection. More on that below.
This content was published on September 14, 2024 – 11:59
The autumn session of Parliament continues. Here you can see what’s on the agenda.
The big stories of the week
Catherine Debrunner Keystone / Ennio Leanza
The 2024 Paralympic Games ended in Paris on Sunday. Switzerland celebrated its greatest success since 1992.
The 27-member Swiss delegation won 21 medals: eight gold, eight silver and five bronze. Catherine Debrunner was the star of the Swiss delegation with five gold and one silver medal (there is still room for improvement here!).
The delegation had “increasingly fallen into a medal frenzy”, wroteExternal Link Swiss Paralympic on Monday, and the athletes pushed each other to achieve top performances. Peter Läuppi, head of the Swiss delegation, highlighted the breadth of the team, which not only won medals in its strongest disciplines of athletics (13) and cycling (5), but also in swimming (2) and badminton, where Ilaria Renggli won Switzerland’s first medal in this sport.
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Sanija Ameti Keystone / Peter Klaunzer
This story was picked up by media worldwide: Zurich politician Sanija Ameti caused a storm after she used a picture of Jesus and Mary for target practice.
Ameti, a member of the Green Liberal Party in Zurich, said she had only picked up an art catalogue to shoot at and had not paid attention to the religious content of the picture. The photos of Jesus riddled with bullets led to criticism from all sides, including from her own party.
She quickly removed the photos from Instagram and apologized, but on Monday she resigned from the party executive committee – which is also discussing whether to revoke her party membership. After receiving threats, Ameti is now under police protection.
The controversy was reported by, among others, Los Angeles TimesExterner Linkdie Taipei TimesExterner Link and the Jordanian news website Al BawabaExterner Link.
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Keystone / Peter Schneider
On Tuesday, the U.S. News & World ReportWhat many of us biased Swiss people know: Switzerland is the best country in the world – and has been for the third year in a row.
“The Alpine nation in Central Europe is known for its high quality of life and healthy business environment and thus continues to top the ranking of the best countries,” writes U.S. NewsExternal link.
However, as we have often written, many expats have a love-hate relationship with Switzerland.
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Fit into old age? Seniors from the Chiasso gymnastics club during training. Keystone / Ti-Press
According to a survey published on Wednesday – 11 days before the votes on the BVG reform and the biodiversity initiative – both proposals would be rejected.
Around 51% of voters reject the planned consolidation of the second pillar, 42% of respondents support the reform, and 7% are undecided. The picture is practically the same for Swiss citizens living abroad. Opponents say the project is essentially a fraud because workers would pay higher contributions in order to receive lower pensions later.
Likewise, 51% of voters are against the biodiversity initiative, 46% are in favor and 3% are undecided. The voting behavior of the Swiss abroad differs from that of their compatriots at home: 56% of Swiss abroad support the project. Political scientist Martina Mousson points out that they tend to be more left-wing and, since they do not pay taxes in Switzerland, do not have to bear the costs of implementing the proposal.
We will report in detail on the vote on September 22nd.
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Keystone / Gaetan Bally
Our most read article this week was an analysis of the foreigners who make up a quarter of the Swiss resident population – and what brings them to Switzerland.
At the end of 2023, around 2.3 million people without Swiss citizenship will live in Switzerland (total: nine million inhabitants) – around a fifth of them were born in the country. The largest share of the foreign resident population continues to be made up of Italians (14%), followed by Germans (13.4%), Portuguese (10.6%) and French (6.8%).
- Information and links for Swiss citizens living abroad on immigration and emigration to and from Switzerland
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Switzerland bizarre
Every family has its secrets, but few have an ancestor who was mummified. Former diplomat Claudio Mazzucchelli had heard family rumors about his “Pasha great-grandfather” for decades, but while working in Egypt he received a call telling him to go to a morgue…
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“This mummy is my great-grandfather”
This content was published on Sep 14, 2024 Former Swiss diplomat Claudio Mazzucchelli and the story of the mummy of his great-grandfather, Pascha Johannes Schiess.
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Picture of the week
Keystone / Valentin Flauraud
Don’t look down: Swiss Funambule player Yannick Wieser runs on a 300-meter-long slackline between the castles of Valère and Tourbillon during the “Gravit’High” event in Sion on September 7.
Outlook for the coming week
Keystone / Anthony Anex
The 11th Nutrition and Physical Activity Report will be published on Wednesday. How healthy are the Swiss? Is obesity continuing to increase? On the one hand, it is said that the Swiss population feels healthier than the rest of Europe, but on the other hand, more than two thirds of the Swiss say they are tired and exhausted. How do you feel?
On Thursday, the Federal Office of Culture will announce which film will – hopefully – represent Switzerland at the Oscars in March. The last Swiss film to make it onto the shortlist for best international feature film was My life as a zucchini in 2016. The last Swiss film to win an Oscar was Journey of Hope from 1990.
