SWITZERLAND – THE QUIET AGONY OF A COUNTRY THAT IS FLEEING… AND FROM WHICH PEOPLE ARE FLEEING
Since the start of the year, more than 68,000 Swiss people have packed their bags. A record figure, according to Blick, which sounds like an admission of collective failure. The famous ‘Swiss quality of life’ is crumbling, eroded by bureaucracy, the ideology of the Green Taliban, their accomplices in the caviar-left, bohemian bourgeoisie, and a political apathy that has become state doctrine.
WHEN NEUTRALITY BECOMES INERTIA, AND PROSPERITY, ANAESTHESIA.
The ‘Swiss paradise’ is slowly crumbling… in a hushed, almost polite silence, in true Swiss fashion.
At the end of the article, you will find various tables from the Federal Statistical Office, which will help you identify our compatriots in the ‘5th Switzerland’ – the place where our fine old values, now dead in Switzerland, are still very much alive.
And now let us analyse the main causes of the exodus!
CITIES RUINED BY GREEN FUNDAMENTALISM AND LEFT-WING DOGMA
Our towns, once jewels of cleanliness and serenity, are now museums of ecological coercion. Every pavement, every cycle path, every removed parking space bears the mark of a green fundamentalism imposed from above.
Citizens can no longer find comfort or freedom there: only a succession of bans, carbon taxes, hellish traffic and housing that has become unaffordable.
The green dream has turned into an urban nightmare: a green utopia that stifles life.
Town centres are emptying, shops are dying, and residents are fleeing—admittedly in search of sunshine, but above all to find a breath of fresh air… And a future!
INSECURITY HAS BECOME THE NORM
Whilst official morality preaches tolerance, the streets deal with reality: assaults, burglaries, trafficking.
The authorities speak of a ‘sense of insecurity’, a magic phrase that allows them to deny the facts without confronting them. Working-class neighbourhoods are becoming grey areas, drug dealers are quietly setting up shop there, and the police, hamstrung by absurd regulations, stand by and watch the misery unfold.
The law-abiding citizen lives in fear, whilst the petty thug struts about with the calm confidence of someone who knows he has nothing to lose.
FAKE REFUGEES, REAL TRAFFICKERS: SWITZERLAND AS AN UNWILLING SPONSOR OF ORGANISED CRIME
Under the guise of humanitarianism, Switzerland has opened its arms… and its wallet. But amongst those supposedly fleeing war or poverty, a well-known fringe of fake refugees has settled in with a very different agenda: to import the drug trade and take advantage of a welfare system more welcoming than a cash machine.
These fake asylum seekers have become masters of double-dealing: administrative victims by day, traffickers by night. Whilst the police pretend their hands are tied, these offenders under state protection commit more and more offences with disconcerting nonchalance; they know that the local justice system is as gentle as a mother’s touch, and that deportation has become an administrative myth.
Social services, for their part, continue to handle these cases with almost religious fervour: subsidised housing, legal aid, benefits – in short, the full arsenal of automatic compassion. Some employees, more activists than civil servants, have even turned imported crime into a social business model: more cases, more budgets, more jobs.
The result: Switzerland, once a model of rigour, unwittingly finances its own lawless zones, whilst honest citizens struggle with the high cost of living, taxes and medical excesses worthy of a horror novel.
And in this grand theatre of the absurd, one almost wonders whether the next federal apprenticeship might not be that of ‘sworn drug dealer’; after all, it is a profession with a future, given the level of protection it enjoys.
JUSTICE ON ITS KNEES BEFORE CRIME, BUT THE WALLET STANDING TOUGH
The Swiss justice system no longer dispenses justice: it charges for it.
Its driving force is no longer the search for the truth, but the taxation of proceedings. Every case becomes a source of income, every trial a cash cow. Delays are mounting, costs are skyrocketing, and the victim ends up funding their own ordeal.
The public prosecutor’s office fulfils its sole function: to punish everyone, to seek out all offences that will generate the highest procedural costs and fines. No investigation into the facts of the case or possible self-defence, mitigating circumstances, etc…
We press charges!! After all, there’s money to be made… The truth? We don’t want to know it!
And what about the presumption of innocence in Switzerland? Oh yes, it does exist… But ONLY for criminals; the victims, for their part, will have to prove their innocence. The court-appointed lawyers for the criminals, who will benefit from all forms of legal aid, will have complete freedom to slander the victims outrageously and produce falsified evidence – no problem; the judges will commend them for it in their verdict.
Victims are harassed, suspected and discouraged, whilst criminals benefit from a procedural system so slow and favourable that it becomes an accomplice.
The more cynical the offender, the more delicately they are treated. Judges brandish the ‘human dignity’ of the guilty as a moral shield, whilst crushing that of the victims under stamps and bills.
In Switzerland, the justice system no longer upholds the law; it protects its coffers and its accomplices – the criminals!
THE COST OF LIVING: WORLD RECORD, QUALITY IN FREE FALL
We are sold the country as a haven of stability and comfort. But behind the façade: exorbitant prices, stifled wages, declining quality.
Food, energy, housing – everything is skyrocketing, whilst the promise of ‘Swiss made’ crumbles under the compromises of globalisation.
Switzerland has long been the most expensive country in the world… But for a quality of life that is deteriorating dramatically. Citizens are paying for a luxury that no longer exists, sustained by state-sponsored storytelling and nostalgia for a prosperity that is no more.
LEADERS OUT OF TOUCH: ELECTED BY NO ONE, PAID FOR BY EVERYONE
Ah, our Federal Councillors: those self-proclaimed guardians of Swiss rigour. From the comfort of their plush offices, they call for budgetary ‘austerity’, whilst receiving remuneration that few private companies would offer to executives without tangible results.
With an annual salary well in excess of CHF 477,688 plus all the perks and CHF 30,000 in tax-free allowances, a guaranteed lifetime pension after a single four-year term (CHF 230,000 per year), drivers, expenses, secretarial support, official accommodation and attendance fees, the life of a ‘public servant’ has a certain air of luxury about it. And when the time comes to ‘leave public service’, no need to panic: a cosy position often awaits them on the board of an insurance company or state monopoly, for a ‘modest’ salary of (around) CHF 180,000–200,000, or even more…
After all, they do need to maintain a lifestyle costing half a million a year… the poor things.
Meanwhile, the general public is struggling, SMEs are buckling under the burden of costs, and young graduates are scrambling for a first job paying 4,500 francs. But at the top, nothing changes: comfort is the only constant of power.
KAFKAESQUE TECHNOCRACY: THE ADMINISTRATIVE MAZE AS AN ECONOMIC MODEL
Getting any project off the ground in this country is like a mythological epic.
Every step is an obstacle course: forms, stamps, signatures, expert reports, feedback on expert reports, back-and-forth correspondence for years on end.
Deadlines stretch like administrative chewing gum, civil servants pass the buck, and innovation dies, strangled by red tape.
Swiss bureaucracy has become a religion. And its followers are scribes convinced that ticking boxes is the same as governing.
And just when you think you’re starting to see the light at the end of the administrative tunnel, the objections arrive… which can drag on for decades…
THE MIRAGE OF EMPLOYMENT – AND THE ABYSS AWAITING WORKERS
The Blick article on record emigration from Switzerland is not just a cold statistic. It is a symptom of a country with no future, and for those still in work, it is a silent hell, because on the surface, everything seems perfect: unemployment at an all-time low, a ‘solid’ economy, innovation at every level. But beneath the Swiss veneer, there is a whiff of trouble and the stale coffee of the job centre.
WAGES THAT ARE STAGNATING… OR EVEN FALLING
Wages, meanwhile, are melting away like snow in Ticino. Rents are soaring, health insurance bills are dizzying, and many workers now belong to a new breed: the “poor permanent employee”.
The 45-year-old “seniors” are now regarded as digital fossils, asked to clear off to make way for multi-tasking interns paid in “SNCF sandwiches”.
And whilst we’re being told the praises of “digital retraining”, AI is happily replacing graphic designers and accountants, and the famous “it was better before, but now tough luck” is becoming the norm.
LACK OF TRAINING – ORGANISED MISMATCH
The market demands new skills: AI, data, digitalisation, green tech. And what is on offer for the unemployed or those retraining? Generic modules, induction courses, a few office skills classes.
Nothing to make up for the shortfall, for example in medicine, which will soon turn Switzerland into a medical wasteland; we maintain a ‘numerus clausus’ for students… The height of maladjustment… Which forces the most courageous to go and study abroad.
Training courses? Obsolete before they’re even finished. And truly advanced training courses are expensive, bogged down in red tape, or accessible only to the young or the less well-off. The result: the digital skills gap is widening, whilst yesterday’s trades are becoming dead-end niches.
SENIORS BANNED BEFORE THEIR TIME
From the age of 45, the self-imposed label of ‘too old’ is all too often pinned on them by recruiters.
People aged 50–64, even though they have a lower unemployment rate than some other groups, take an average of 7.9 months to find a job, compared with 5.8 months for those aged 25–49. (Swiss Employers’ Association)
Companies view ageing (higher LPP contributions, fear of early retirement) as a cost, not as a wealth of experience.
So you have thirty years of hard work behind you, but an invisible wall in front of you: goodbye to interesting job offers, hello to precarious odd jobs (at best) but more likely long-term unemployment, before falling into the deep precariousness from which one never escapes in Switzerland.
Let’s talk about unemployment: the official figures are nothing short of an accounting miracle. People are struck off the register, ‘re-oriented’, and the undesirables are made to vanish from the statistics. Thousands of people drop out of the system and end up at the Hospice général, invisible and exhausted.
But shhh… officially, everything’s fine!
And whilst companies are relocating left, right and centre, hand on heart and green logo on the door, Switzerland is slowly sinking into economic schizophrenia: a rich country that manufactures its own precariousness, on an assembly line, with a smile.
OFFSHORING & HUMAN ACCOUNTING
Between 2000 and today, entire swathes of Swiss industry, services and IT divisions have been relocated to lower-cost countries. The benefit? Higher margins for shareholders. The consequence? Weakened industrial communities, jobs stripped to the bone.
Those who lose their jobs are not “registered as unemployed”: they are sent to the Hospice général. Because it’s simpler for the statistics, and far cheaper than implementing proper social policies.
Is official unemployment falling? Perhaps, but all those who “fall off the radar” are no longer counted. They live in the shadows, in absolute precariousness… And they die in silence… Alone…
PENSIONERS: THE GOLDEN PROMISES THAT LEAD TO A MISERABLE DEATH
Ah, the famous Swiss pension! It was sold to us as the secure Holy Grail: AVS + second pillar, third pillar, fabulous returns, absolute security… a veritable Disneyland for the elderly. Fabulous, isn’t it?
Except that reality has a much more bitter taste. After 45 years of back-breaking work, over 60% of pensioners find themselves living in abject poverty, forced to ration their healthcare and dread every doctor’s visit for fear of not being able to pay the excess on their health insurance, the most expensive in the world.
To maintain some semblance of a life, some turn to the free sport of the modern age: rummaging through bins to improve their daily lives. The golden promise of a peaceful retirement thus turns into a cruel mirage, paid for dearly by those who believed in the Swiss fairy tale.
Switzerland, a country of luxury and perfectionism, is becoming an amusement park for criminals… and a disguised graveyard for its weary, honest workers. Next stop: ‘Soylent Green’??
YOUNG PEOPLE ARE LOOKING ELSEWHERE BECAUSE THEY HAVE FIGURED IT OUT!
Young people are not leaving on a whim, but out of clear-sightedness.
They see a world moving at the speed of light whilst their country is bogged down in slowness, fear and moralism.
They leave to create, to dare, to live… elsewhere.
And when a country loses its youth, it loses not only its future: it loses its soul.
CONCLUSION: THE COUNTRY THAT BURIES ITSELF WHILE BELIEVING IT IS RISING
- Switzerland is slowly sinking into the torpor of its past comforts.
- It sees itself as a model, but no longer inspires anyone.
- It believes itself to be stable, but stands only out of habit.
- It has wiped out its middle class, yet continues to pamper its criminals.
Whilst its neighbours and the rest of the world are inventing, building, daring and moving forward, it counts its regulations, files its forms and makes its citizens vote 25 times a year, believing they have power… What an illusion!
Record emigration is not a flight: it is a verdict.
The country that was once a symbol of balance and freedom is now digging its own grave, with taxes, red tape, institutionalised crime, manipulation and ideology.
Welcome to modern Switzerland: clean, well-groomed, and socially washed out
People of worth do not ‘flee’ Switzerland because it is bad. They flee because Switzerland is no longer for them.
Alain Farrugia
Everything you need to know about the Swiss abroad in nine charts
Over the last decade, an average of around 30,000 Swiss people have emigrated each year.
By the end of 2024, 826,708 Swiss nationals (11% of the Swiss population) were living outside the country’s borders, according to the latest figures from the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).
This figure represents 80,000 more people than ten years ago, and an increase of over 320,000 people since 1993. Between 2023 and 2024 alone, the diaspora grew by more than 13,000 people. Their numbers have increased, to varying degrees, in all regions of the world except Latin America, where they have remained stable.
Emigration accounts for only part of this upward trend. The births of Swiss children abroad, as well as naturalisations, also contribute to it.
Nearly two-thirds of Swiss citizens living abroad reside in Europe
64% of expatriates live in Europe, mainly in neighbouring countries. With 212,100 people, France is home to the largest community, followed by Germany and Italy.
Young adults emigrate the most
The 20–35 age group accounts for the highest number of Swiss emigrants (a third of the total).
A second wave is then observed among older people: 20% of all departures abroad are by people aged 55 to 69.
The majority of Swiss living abroad (55%) are of working age.
Around one in five expatriates is under 18, and nearly one in four is aged 65 or over.
In recent years, the senior population has been the group that has grown the most (+4% between 2023 and 2024, following a similar increase the previous year).
The extremes of the age pyramid
Among the countries hosting large Swiss communities, Thailand, Portugal, Spain and South Africa stand out with a significant proportion of senior citizens. Whilst the average age of Swiss citizens living abroad is 43, it is 55 in Thailand.
Between 2023 and 2024, the proportion of Swiss senior citizens increased particularly sharply in Portugal and Thailand (by 16% and 7% respectively).
Conversely, Israel is home to by far the youngest community of Swiss abroad: nearly half of the Swiss in Israel are under 18, and the average age of the diaspora there is 27.
Three cantons account for half of all emigrants
A glance at the cantons of origin of Swiss emigrants reveals the dominance of Zurich, Vaud and Geneva.
Taken together, these three urban and globalised cantons accounted for nearly half of all Swiss emigration recorded between 2019 and 2023.
Three-quarters of Swiss nationals living abroad hold one or more passports in addition to their Swiss nationality.
However, this proportion varies significantly depending on the country of residence. Thailand has the highest proportion of Swiss nationals with no other nationality. Conversely, almost the entire Swiss diaspora living in Argentina holds multiple nationalities.
Around half of Swiss emigrants return
The duration of emigration also tends to be shorter for those born in Switzerland: more than a third returned to Switzerland within three years of leaving, compared with less than a quarter of those born abroad.
Is the lure of the open sea stronger than homesickness? More Swiss people are leaving Switzerland than settling there
Nevertheless, every year, more Swiss people take the plunge and move abroad than those who come (or return) to settle in Switzerland.
The year 2020, marked by the Covid pandemic, was the only exception in the last 30 years. But since then, emigration has been on the rise again.
In 2023 (the latest year for which figures are available), nearly 31,000 Swiss nationals left the country, whilst around 22,000 immigrated to it.
Sources:
https://www.blick.ch/fr/suisse/l-emigration-atteint-un-record-en-suisse-id21339476.html
https://www.24heures.ch/suisse-68000-departs-en-2024-emigration-record-177190196636
https://econostrum.info/suisse/suisse-face-a-un-exode-suisses-pays/
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