Switzerland
The center has no monopoly on the search for balance
Anti-ideologism, nothing but a posture
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Section: Policy
«Le Centre»: debate between two young centrists
At the start of 2021, the Swiss political landscape undergoes a major turning point. The historic Christian Democratic Party (CVP) welcomes into its ranks the young Bourgeois Democratic Party (PBD). This merger, mainly in German-speaking Switzerland, is accompanied by a veritable earthquake as the party changes its name to Le Centre. Nathan Bender of the Jeunes démocrates-chrétiens (JDC) in French-speaking Valais and Sascha Zbinden of the Jeunes bourgeois-démocrates (JPBD) in Bern cross swords, sharing their visions and thoughts on this new party and the challenges it will face in the coming years.
Trump was not a mistake of history
LONG FORMAT ARTICLE, Clément Guntern | Now that Donald Trump's term in office is coming to an end, the question arises: what will he leave as a legacy to his country's history? His personality and political actions may have shocked or impressed, but he is nonetheless perpetuating a trend that has long been present: the national disunity and international decline of the United States.
The bilateral route has always been a dead end
ARTICLE LONG FORMAT, Clément Guntern | When Switzerland embarked on the bilateral path in the early 2000s, it thought it had found a form of cohabitation with its European neighbor that would be profitable and adapted to Swiss particularities. From the outset, however, this path was in reality a political dead-end. It remains so today, and can be explained by a series of deep-rooted Swiss myths. To get out of this cul-de-sac, it is up to the Swiss people to finally have a European project. An act requiring courage and modesty, and one that would strengthen our national identity.
Behind the notion of sovereignty, the end of naivety
The year 2020, in addition to having seen a pandemic of immeasurable impact, has marked the return, or rather the rebirth, of a notion that was once thought to be obsolete, unsuitable and even dangerous: that of sovereignty. In the space of a few months, the issue has once again become central. But an anachronistic vocabulary tends to overshadow what is really at stake: not the withdrawal of nations into themselves, but the pursuit of balanced regulation of globalization.
Vocational training: a university affair?
LONG FORMAT ARTICLE, Robin Parisi | Swiss education is conceived as a system with two main parallel, but mutually permeable, routes. The so-called «vocational» route starts with the famous CFC and can end with ES, Brevets Fédéraux or Diplôme Fédéral diplomas. The second route takes students from Matura, gymnasium or specialized schools to the universities and HES. And yet, as is mainly the case in French-speaking Switzerland, the universities of applied sciences - with the benevolent blessing of the French-speaking cantonal authorities - are monopolizing the privilege of vocational training. Without, however, relinquishing the «university» prestige that the Bologna Process has brought them.
Mohamed Hamdaoui: «Teachers must be given the opportunity to speak out».»
LONG FORM INTERVIEW, Jonas Follonier | He's one of Switzerland's leading politicians in the fight against Islamism. Even if he doesn't like the word «combat» (he prefers the word «cause»), Mohamed Hamdaoui has made it one of his priority themes, making himself a highly committed player in the debate, even if it means over-emotionalizing. His background no doubt has something to do with it: born in the Hoggar, this Tuareg loved a woman who, in the 1980s, was kidnapped by Algerian Islamists because she refused to wear the veil. These sowers of terror beheaded her. The murder in France of Professor Samuel Paty by a radicalized Muslim using the same modus operandi shook him to the core. Interview with a former socialist turned PDC, who doesn't consider Switzerland immune to political Islam.
The roots of American political polarization
The country that has been called the first of democracies, the one whose merits and vigor have been praised for so long, now seems to be out of breath. The chaotic «debate» between Joe Biden and Donald Trump bears witness to this. The roots of the problem run so deep that it would be unfair to attribute the current situation to any particular president. It is up to American society as a whole to deal with the evil that is eating away at it: rampant polarization.
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