If you need to learn quickly and efficiently about Switzerland, this essay is made for you

Do you want to understand why the Swiss seem to spend their time voting on every imaginable issue?

Why the housing shortage is so acute?

Why Switzerland may be the only democratic country that has no majority and opposition?

Why shops close so early?

And you don’t want it explained in a scholarly way, as you are more interested in the spirit than in the letter?

This is your book.

A straight-to-the-point essay that will provide you with key elements to understand this small but complex country that is Switzerland

EXTRAIT

"“Who in the room knows the name of the Swiss president?”

That’s the question I asked a group of three hundred expatriates living in Geneva area at the beginning of a “Swiss Politics for Dummies” seminar in June, 2009. Around 10 to 15% of them raised their hands. About what I’d expected. And certainly not a bad score: these were people curious about Swiss politics. Enough, at least, to sacrifice an entire evening to listen to a lecture about it. With another group, things could have been much worse.

I don’t blame them. All the puzzled looks following my seemingly simple question reminded me of a ride on the Cairo underground a few years earlier. It was the final years of Hosni Mubarak era."

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pierre Cormon is a journalist and writer from Geneva, as well as an active member of the expats network glocals.com. He has written three books of fiction, in French.