From

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/internal...63519000&ty=st

The SVP has a policy, apparently, that:

Presumably this is targetted at the kind of people who arrive and 20 years later can barely string together a sentence in German/French/etc. But I suck at German, even after a 6 months of learning it, so the way it's worded is pretty worrying! And because my German sucks I can't figure out the SVPs policies from their website either! D'oh!

What is their actual aim here? Is there much chance of it becoming law?

No, there's no way they can force someone to learn the local language. You can expect obviously hassle for your day-to-day life, but it's all your business. What SVP says is just populist crap of the worse kind.

P.S.: I would rather learn Spanish or Portuguese than swiss-german, you can bet on it.

yeah, and out of my ass fly monkeys. no way this is ever going to happen.
from the executive point of view they (SVP) dont have even enough seats, the majority needed in the bundeshaus to vote for that to become, to turn into a law. this is directed to those seeking for asylum or having the status of asylum and maybe for several years they dont even understand high german. thats what i could make out from some very populist handout...

A reasonable doubt is: how things will end up if people will continue to vote SVP giving them more and more seats? This could obviously give them more power to let their middle-age rules to pass at the bundeshaus...

The swiss are obviously scared by the huge amount of foreigner and the take over they can make on their society, customs, rules etc. This huge amount of foreigners might
have always been there but in this particular historical period, the continous hype put on terrorism, criminality etc is giving a boost to extreme right-wind parties and movements not only in Switzerland but in all Europe (example, in France Sarcozy won because of his "promise" on laws towards illegal foreigners).

This could also be a reaction to globalisation and to all its not-so-nice effects.

We are living in a period of fear which makes the life of Blocher easier on all the grounds..

I wonder if this can even pass international human rights laws.

They might articulate the law in a way it would pass human rights laws. I don't see it as a big concern for SVP. Supposedly they want to affect long-term foreigners only?

I don't see how somebody living in CH since just 1 year can master swiss-german. Most of us come here to work for multinationals where english is the business language and outside work is tough as hell to socialize with the swiss, unless you get introduced by someone they know. Not everybody are as lucky to have already contacts integrated into the swiss society before their arrival. Most people come here and have to work it out by themselves.

I've been here for a number of years. Although I can speak German, I find that I can go about my daily life without speaking it. We speak English at work. The swiss people I know seem to use every opportunity to speak English.

In my opinion, this SVP initiative is basically to cater to their ignorant and xenophobic base. I think the problem with these yahoos is that they still haven't developed the social skills to deal with people who are different, other than from a position of overwhelming power. Haven't they figured out how outnumbered and outsmarted they are?

I can't wait for the day the real Schweizerische Volks wake up to the scam the SVP is pulling on them.

I don't see any mention of language requirement in the link you posted above. I think if you are going to raise such a contentious subject a link to back it up is appropriate.

Also, if you really think that English is not already a language of your area of Switzerland, then move to Zurich...

I suppose there is always the chance that it might for non EU citizens, but that is where it would stop...

It's on the right hand side. If you can't see it, search the page for those words. Unless you are being sent a different page by the server to me, it'll be there.

FWIW I already live in Zurich and have no problems with languages. It is, nonetheless, a policy that should interest expats ..

OMG! you are right. I can't beleive this though looks like bad reporting. Th probelm is that in this present climate you never know what they will try to shove through into Law. I wouldn't worry too much, as German is the official language in Zurich most of the German-Swiss population, haven't mastered it completely. They will have so many to chase that you should be way down on the list. It must make people wonder if they should be making plans to leave.

I think you should only learn one sentence with regard to this latest SVP beauty:
"Diä chönd mich mal!"
Or, of course, the French equivalent:
"Allez-vous faire foutre!"

Seriously, what next...

Mandatory arm-bands?

and this means...?

Also, way before they would be able to pass this English will have become an official language.

hey, 70% of us never were asleep

It's just that at the moment more seem to fall asleep than are waking up

In my opinion, this SVP initiative is basically to cater to their ignorant and xenophobic base. I think the problem with these yahoos is that they still haven't developed the social skills to deal with people who are different, other than from a position of overwhelming power. Haven't they figured out how outnumbered and outsmarted they are?

I can't wait for the day the real Schweizerische Volks wake up to the scam the SVP is pulling on them.[/quote]


My concern is that many of these guys aren't yahoos - one Swiss I work with, an educated, well travelled guy who has himself lived elsewhere in Europe and the US previously, has spent much of the last week in an increasingly impatient series of attempts to 'help me understand'
a) that the Sheep poster is not racist and
b) that 'the SVP has a point, most crime IS called by foreigners' and
c) that, in a way you can't really blame the foreigners since 'they don't know better, having been brought up in war zones, they just assume that violence is OK....' ....etc

I'm glad the weekend is round the corner...

but reports said SVP had not more voters but non SVP-voters split to other parties. if they had still voted vor SP, these 2more seats would not have been able to get by SVP.

OK I apologise. Though Firefox does not show this statement up in a page search.

I see that this page does not exist in the German pages of swissinfo.ch. Also I can see no such policy on the SVP website. There they state that 'applicants for nationalisation should understand our political system and have good knowledge of at least one national language'

[Translated from

Nowhere can I find such a ridiculous policy from the SVP as to throw out foreigner who can speak a Swiss langauge. I have written to Swissinfo and asked them where they got this information from.

Far be it for me to defend the SVP, but to state:

seems obviously incorrect - to put it mildly...

It is true, I too know a few people who really tried to explain that the black sheep poster was not meant to be seen in the way it has been and that black usually represents bad, thus people that are bad get kicked out of the country... Switzerland has enough and doesn't need the whole world's criminals here. That was the supposed intention, and art can be interpreted in different ways (HA). They also admitted though that this one was in poor taste.

However, I don't think SVP aims to kick all its foreigners out - just criminal foreigners and their families. God knows they need us to keep their economy stable. However, assuming most people have lived here for a while, we know there are a few communities the Swiss always complain about. And thats who they really want out of their society. So in a way it gets back to being prejudiced or racist. Plus they don't want to pay taxes to support people in exile - especially criminals.

Thats how I perceive it. I agree the world has gone a bit bonkers - its being ruled by fear. Look at what a pain in the @** a flight trip has become!