The week in Switzerland
Dear Swiss Abroad,
On New Year’s Eve, a fire in a nightclub in the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana killed 40 people – mostly young and mostly Swiss – and injured 116. Reaction around the world was of shock, disbelief and sadness. Following a national day of mourning, anger is also growing – given what appears to be staggering negligence on the part of not only the bar owners but also the local authorities.
Friday was a day of national mourning in Switzerland for those who died in the fire in Crans-Montana on New Year’s Eve.
Church bells rang at 2pm across the country, when there was also a minute’s silence. A memorial ceremony was held in Martigny and not in Crans-Montana itself due to heavy snowfall. Given the international dimension of the tragedy, many countries had been invited. Among the heads of state and government attending were French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian President Sergio Mattarella.
Earlier in the week, on Sunday evening, Valais cantonal police said they had completed the identification of the 40 people who died and the 116 who were injured. Most of those who died were young – only six were older than 23. The victims comprised 21 Swiss nationals, one person with dual Swiss-French nationality, seven people from France, six people from Italy, one person each from Romania, Turkey, Portugal and Belgium, and one person with triple nationality (France/Israel/UK).
The Valais public prosecutor’s office has opened a criminal investigation against the bar’s proprietors, a French couple. They are accused of negligent homicide, negligent bodily harm and negligently causing a conflagration. Initial investigations suggest the fire started when sparklers attached to champagne bottles were carried too close to the ceiling.
On Tuesday Valais cantonal government said the victims of the fire and their families would receive financial assistance. The details have yet to be worked out.
“We thought Switzerland was the country of rules, precision and manic controls,” wrote Italy’s La Repubblica. Media around the world are struggling to understand how such a disaster could occur in a country often portrayed as safe and tightly regulated.
International coverage has focused in particular on the failure to carry out routine fire safety inspections, not only at the bar that caught fire, but, according to several reports, at other bars and restaurants in the region. Authorities have acknowledged that the Crans-Montana bar had not been inspected since 2019.
“Even the most virtuous country can fail,” wrote a La Repubblica editor who usually reports on corruption and organised crime. Several Italian outlets describe the tragedy as exposing cracks in the image of a “perfect” country.
Major international outlets including the BBC, CNN and The New York Times have also been covering the fire, noting that the bar had not undergone a fire inspection for five years.
Swiss newspapers have been equally critical. “Based on what we know so far, Crans-Montana also shows the worst possible flip side of principles of which Switzerland is otherwise rightly proud: militia politics, municipal autonomy, subsidiarity. In this specific case, the flip side looks like this: sloppiness, irresponsibility, lack of controls, possibly cronyism,” the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) wrote on Wednesday.
The NZZ said the memorial ceremony on Friday was “not only an opportunity, but also an obligation to do better”.
On Monday the Swiss government decided to freeze Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s suspected assets in Switzerland with immediate effect.
Maduro was captured by US armed forces in Caracas at the weekend and flown to New York. He has been indicted by US prosecutors on several counts, including narco-terrorism.
The government said it had frozen the suspected assets of Maduro and other people associated with him in Switzerland as a precautionary measure to prevent an outflow of capital. No member of the current Venezuelan government is affected.
Should it be proven that the funds are illicit, Switzerland will ensure that they are returned to the Venezuelan people, the government explained.
Swiss newspapers generally saw the removal of Maduro as positive for Venezuela, but they were less sure about the means.
“The world is one dictator poorer,” wrote Blick. “Nicolás Maduro ruled Venezuela brutally, corruptly and unscrupulously. In order to stay in power, he never shied away from violence against his own people. His removal […] is a liberation for many Venezuelans.” The coup in Caracas therefore looks like a success, it wrote, “but it has a bitter aftertaste. With his attack on Venezuelan military and government targets, Trump has shown what he thinks of international law and territorial integrity: nothing”. For Blick, Trump’s military strike is “less about morality than power interests – it marks the return of US imperialism”.
For the first time since the founding of the three honour societies (Ehrengesellschaften) in Basel in the 14th century, two women have been admitted.
The women’s names will be announced on Tuesday as part of the “Vogel Gryff”, the most important event in the Kleinbasel festival, Swiss public radio SRF reported. The Leu (lion), the Vogel Gryff and the Wild Maa (savage) – the three heraldic figures of the honour societies – dance through the streets of Kleinbasel, accompanied by three drummers, three flag bearers and four “Ueli”, collecting money for the needy. Crowds are massive.
In 2022 the three honour societies wrote of an “epochal turning point” when they said women could be included. They didn’t take this step voluntarily: criticism had grown that a state institution should not allow such gender discrimination.
Some Basel guilds, formerly professional organisations, accepted women much earlier. Four of Basel’s 20 guilds were recently regarded as exclusively male organisations, but one admitted its first women last year.
The week ahead
The Appenzell region of northeast Switzerland will ring in the New Year – again – on Tuesday (January 13 is New Year according to the Gregorian calendar). The Silvesterchläuse (New Year’s Eve Clauses) go from door to door giving out greetings.
On Thursday Lucerne will be lit up by the seventh Lilu Light Festival Lucerne, which runs until the 25th. Artists from all over the world will present the “diverse and fascinating facets of light art”.
The weeklong annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) starts on Monday January 19. On Friday a press conference will be held in the mountain resort of Davos explaining the security situation. The following day an anti-WEF demo is set to be held in Bern.
Edited by Samuel Jaberg/sb
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