Switzerland Today
Greetings from Zurich!
What’s the most common colour of cow in your part of the world? If you can answer that question, you could win another Swiss passport!
More on that curiosity later, but first, here’s the news of the day.
In the news: Swiss rivers flood, protecting schoolchildren from cancer and snowless piste fears.
- After weeks of scorching sun, the rain has arrived, swelling several rivers in Switzerland over their banks.
- Schools are struggling to keep up with demands to install protection against the cancerous radioactive gas radon.
- Transport safety investigators dealt with a record number of safety incidents last year.
- A third of Swiss ski resorts will face a shortage of snow if temperatures continue to rise.
Cows and passports
Obtaining a Swiss passport is still a bit of a lottery depending in which region of the country candidates apply.
Any foreigner going for the red passport in canton Schwyz after a period of probationary residence would need a deep knowledge of obscure facts.
This includes identifying the most common colour of cow in their neighbourhood or naming different animals in their local zoo.
Local newspaper, the Freier Schweizer, has dug up the lists of questions that different communities ask of budding new citizens.
“If you had to choose between one of the two passports, which one would it be?” is one question aimed at dual passport holders (although this is rarely asked in practice, according to the town in question).
Another community asks Muslims how they feel about “the fact that girls have to attend swimming lessons”, the newspaper reports.
The Swiss courts have been forced to intervene in the past when the naturalisationprocess got out of hand in Schwyz.
For one civil rights expert, some areas of the canton have failed to heed the rulings and continue with their lists of off-the-wall questions.
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