Brunner served in the Geneva government before heading to the federal parliament in Bern, where she stayed until her retirement from politics in 2007.
Keystone-SDA
The Swiss trade unionist and politician Christiane Brunner has died at the age of 78. A leading figure in the feminist movement, the Geneva native orchestrated the first women’s strike in 1991. Her failure to be elected to the Federal Council in 1993 went down in history.
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Brunner died on Friday morning, her son told news agency Keystone-SDA, confirming a report from Swiss public radio RTS.
Brunner was a member of the Geneva government from 1981 to 1990, before becoming a member of the House of Representatives from 1991 to 1995, and then a member of the Senate from 1995 to 2007. She was also president of the Swiss Socialist Party from 2000 to 2004.
+ The 1991 women’s strike in pictures
In 1993, she was the official Socialist candidate to succeed René Felber in the Swiss government. But the parliament instead elected Francis Matthey. However, Matthey was forced to resign in the face of opposition from his own party, and in the end Ruth Dreifuss was elected to the government.
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Translated from French with DeepL/gw
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