The Genevans are going to have their hair cut in the canton of Vaud, the Neuchâtelois sit down in restaurants in Bern, and the Bernese go to the gym in Solothurn, summarizes a daily in Lausanne to explain the cacophony that currently reigns in Swiss.
During the first containment, it was the Federal Council (government) which had taken control and the epidemic had been rather well controlled. But today, each canton sovereignly makes its decisions, and it’s a disaster. This small country of 8.5 million inhabitants recorded in a single day 5,086 new cases of contamination and 117 deaths. The situation is all the more complicated as some municipalities are isolated in the neighboring canton, such as the Genevan Céligny in the canton of Vaud, or Raach, a municipality in the canton of St. Gallen, isolated in that of Thurgau.
To curb this cacophony, the French-speaking cantons had decided to harmonize their health rules and to open their restaurants and bars on Thursday, December 10 until 11 p.m. Only Valais showed its (small) difference by choosing the date of December 14. In the German-speaking area, on the other hand, everyone continues to pull the rope. When one deconfines, his neighbor refines. The Soleurois, Argoviens, Thurgoviens and Appenzellois have never stopped frequenting restaurants. “In such a system, the incentives are strong for the cantons to adopt a passive attitude, in the hope perhaps that the neighboring regions react more quickly and that this benefits its own canton”, notes Jan-Egbert Sturm, director of the economic research center of the Zurich Polytechnic, in the daily Time.
A reopening of… 48 hours
“We don’t have the same way of life either, a German-speaking man finished dinner at 7 p.m., while a Romand [un francophone] doesn’t arrive at the restaurant before 8 p.m., and I don’t speak of the Ticinese [un italophone], they disembark just before closing time ”, underlines the owner of a large Geneva establishment near Cornavin station. In short, the competitive federalist system seems to be leading to complete havoc. As a result, the socialist Alain Berset, the Federal Minister of Health (and also Minister of the Interior), decided to take the situation in hand, announcing that the figures of the pandemic do not allow to loosen the screw, well at opposite. This francophone (he is elected from the canton of Friborg) did not hesitate to question the reopening of Thursday in the French-speaking cantons …
What should Alain Berset announce? Presumably the restaurants will have to close at 7 p.m., while since Thursday, after a seven-week closure, they are open until 11 p.m. on the shores of Lake Geneva and in the Jura! That cultural activities, cinemas, museums, shows, nightclubs, will remain prohibited until January, that private meetings will be limited to a maximum of five people, that in stores, a space of 10 m2 per customer, compared to 4 m2 currently. Imagine the anger of a cafe owner who opened his establishment on Thursday and will have to close it two days later! In the city of Calvin, 30% of bars have already gone out of business.
The rösti ditch
It does not take more to bring out the “Röstigraben”, understand the rösti ditch. Rösti is a potato pancake, a typical dish of German-speaking Switzerland which gave its name to the symbolic border separating French speakers from German speakers. “For many French-speaking people [francophones], good students pay the price of German dunces ”, denounces The Geneva Tribune. Marianne Maret, MP for the canton of Valais, speaks of “collective punishment”, Mauro Poggia, the Geneva Minister of Health, denounces the “disrespect” of the federal government. Jacques Gerber, Minister of Health of the Canton of Jura, is “bitter”, noting that the government “puts us before the fact.”
It’s even worse for the canton of Friborg, which has just announced the reopening of cinemas, theaters, theaters and concerts, and ice rinks. French speakers are not entirely wrong, the cantons most affected by the coronavirus are those of St. Gallen, Basel-Country and Basel-City, and that of Ticino, which speak German and Italian. But as nothing is ever simple in Switzerland, while the French-speaking cantons have asked the Federal Council (government) in polite terms “to soften the measures envisaged”, the canton of Geneva did not sign the joint communiqué, explaining that he “doesn’t like to work in a rush.”
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