Switzerland welcomes 2025 with fireworks and ice plunges
Participants at the traditional New Year swimming event in Geneva on January 1, 2025.
Keystone-SDA
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening: Switzerland welcomes 2025 with fireworks and ice plunges
Fireworks lit up the skies in Switzerland to celebrate New Year's Eve. Some people welcomed the new year by plunging into lakes in freezing temperatures.
This content was published on
2 minutes
Keystone-SDA
Français
fr
Le Nouvel An assombri par des accidents en Suisse
Original
Thousands of people attended the fireworks display on the shores of Lake Geneva and Lake Zurich, despite thick fog. In many parts of the country, New Year’s Eve was celebrated in bitterly cold weather.
As every year, a traditional fireworks display took place on the Quai Gustave-Ador in Geneva. Concerts, bars and food trucks also contributed to the festivities.
More
More
In Switzerland, New Year brings ‘burka ban’ and pension hikes
This content was published on
A Swiss ban on facial coverings in public places comes into force on January 1, 2025.
Meanwhile, Lausanne’s Christmas market hosted a silent party, with party-goers dancing to music in headphones. And in Biel, it was possible to skate late into the night.
Other special events were organised in French-speaking Switzerland such as a circus and lake cruises.
Icy dip
In canton Bern, the residents of Laupen celebrated the “Achetringele” custom for the 101st time, chasing away evil spirits with bells, juniper brooms, pig bladders and scary masks to welcome in the new year.
More
More
Happy – and creepy – New Year in Switzerland!
This content was published on
Billions of people around the world will be marking the New Year somehow – and the tradition-loving Swiss are no exception.
In Moosseedorf-Schönbühl, also in canton Bern, dozens of people plunged into the cold waters of the Moossee lake for the New Year’s Eve swim. This tradition has been repeated every December 31 at midday since 1999.
Police and firefighters were also called out last night. In Zufikon in canton Aargau, a Lamborghini caught fire in an underground garage, causing heavy smoke and damage to over 75 cars. Over 100 firefighters had to intervene for several hours.
Adapted from French by DeepL/sb
This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.
If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
What factors should be taken into account when inheriting Swiss citizenship abroad?
Should there be a limit to the passing on of Swiss citizenship? Or is the current practice too strict and it should still be possible to register after the age of 25?
Is your place of origin, your Heimatort, important to you?
Every Swiss citizen has a Heimatort, a place of origin, but many have never visited theirs. What’s your relationship with your Heimatort? What does it mean to you?
This content was published on
Scientists have shown that bonobos combine their calls into complex sound sequences that resemble combinations of human words.
This content was published on
US parliamentarians have threatened the UN Human Rights Council with sanctions similar to those against the International Criminal Court (ICC).
This content was published on
Thanks to abundant snowfall, lift operators benefited from increased visitor numbers, with the number of guests jumping by 12% year-on-year.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.