Swiss government spokesman dies during a hike
André Simonazzi, spokesman for the governing Federal Council and Vice Chancellor, has died.
Simonazzi died on Friday at the age of 55 after collapsing while hiking, the Federal Chancellery announced on Saturday. Born in 1968 in Monthey in canton Valais, Simonazzi was appointed Vice-Chancellor and spokesman of the Federal Council in November 2008. Since 2009, he has taken part in and kept the minutes of Federal Council meetings and has been responsible for their communications.
The location of the fatal hike was not specified. A spokeswoman for the Chancellery told press agency Keystone-ATS that his replacement had not yet been determined by late Saturday afternoon.
André Simonazzi “was a servant of the State in the noblest sense of the term”, wrote the Federal Chancellery in paying tribute to the deceased. Simonazzi graduated with a degree in international relations. He trained as a journalist at Le Nouvelliste. From 1995 to 1998, he worked for the NGO Caritas Switzerland as press officer for French-speaking Switzerland. In 1998, he took over the general information department.
He then joined the Information Service of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) in 2004. He was initially deputy head of information and spokesman for French-speaking Switzerland.
Adapted from French by Deepl/ac
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, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to english@swissinfo.ch.
External Content
Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished… We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
More
Why Switzerland is among the ten fastest-warming countries in the world
More
In Switzerland four out of ten people have a migrant background – who are they?
More
Suicides in Switzerland quadruple among older people
More
French gangs target luxury cars in Switzerland
More
Renewed controversy in Switzerland over US fighter jets – explained
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
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.