Switzerland’s hard-right party is launching an initiative to withdraw foreigners’ voting rights; children with migrant backgrounds are falling behind in school due to language barriers; and more news in our Thursday roundup.
Rightwing party is launching an initiative to withdraw voting rights from foreigners
The Geneva branch of the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) announced on Wednesday that it will launch an initiative to abolish the right of foreigners to vote in municipal referendums and elections.
According to the move’s supporters, foreigners’ rights to vote and to run for political office in Geneva should be “the culmination of a successful integration process.”
“For us, the right to vote must be granted upon naturalisation,” said Lionel Dugerdil , president of the Geneva SVP branch. “Otherwise, people are not sufficiently informed about the Swiss political system and may not use a ballot correctly.”
Foreign children are falling behind in school due to language barriers
A new study shows that the language skills of children with a migration background and those with Swiss parents are diverging – more so in Switzerland than in most EU countries.
Concretely, the study, published by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), indicates that over 60 percent of more than 600,000 children who were born in Switzerland to immigrant parents don’t speak the local language at home, therefore falling behind in reading and writing at school.
Only Austria, Finland, and Sweden have higher rates.
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Cheeseless raclette – really?
Agroscope, which conducts agricultural research for the Swiss government, announced that it had developed “a tasty plant-based alternative” to traditional raclette.
This has sparked anger not only in Valais, the raclette’s birthplace, but also in the Federal Palace in Bern, where deputy Marianne Maret has asked the Federal Council to explain why it has used public funds to develop this plant-based raclette, thus putting the country’s dairy producers at risk.
Agroscope’s mission is to “provide scientific support for a competitive and sustainable Swiss agriculture,” she said. “In the current context, with dairy sectors under considerable pressure, it is legitimate to question whether using public funds to develop plant-based substitutes for traditional dairy products truly aligns with this mission.”
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EasyJet adds a new French destination from Basel to the summer 2026 schedule
France is a top priority for EasyJet from Basel EuroAirport. Starting in June 22nd, 2026, the airline will fly from this airport to Lille.
The new route will be served with two flights per week, on Mondays and Fridays.
In total, EasyJet will fly to 11 destinations in France from the EuroAirport Basel in summer 2026, including Lille, Paris, Nice, Montpellier, Marseille, Nantes, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Ajaccio, Bastia, and Biarritz.
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