The Portuguese victory at the European Football Championship in France was also celebrated across Switzerland, which has a very large community of Portuguese immigrants.
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Keystone, swissinfo.ch
Portugal fans took to the Swiss streets in their hundreds late on Sunday night following their country’s 1-0 Euro 2016 victory over France in extra time.
The Portuguese are the third biggest foreign community in Switzerland, representing 268,067 citizens at the end of 2015 (13.1% of all foreign residents). Switzerland has a population of 8.2 million.
Emigration from Portugal to Switzerland has been on the constant rise over the past five years (12,000 a year).
swissinfo.ch
Portuguese communities in Switzerland are relatively young and generally live in French-speaking regions. But cantons Graubünden and Valais, with a strong focus on tourism, also have big communities.
In some communes the Portuguese may represent almost half the local population. For example, Tasch, in canton Valais, near Zermatt, is home to 1,200 residents, of which just over 600 come from Portugal. (Photos: Keystone)
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Fibbi is a professor at Lausanne University and a coordinator of the Swiss Forum for the Study of Migration at Neuchâtel University. Born in Italy, but resident in Switzerland for more than 30 years, she is well-placed to understand the complexities of immigration. In 2010, she oversaw a study entitled “The Portuguese in Switzerland”, commissioned…
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