Switzerland Today

Dear Swiss Abroad,

Can a farmer from Quebec cause an upset at the National Wrestling Anniversary Festival, which takes place every 25 years? Probably not, but it’s good to see the Swiss Abroad getting involved in local traditions.

Here’s more on that and other news and stories from Switzerland on Wednesday.

Keystone-SDA

In the news: Is it a meteor? Is it a satellite? A bright light is explained. Plus a problem lynx is shot, criticism of a trade deal with China, Swiss gas consumption, and the government’s stance on nuclear power.

A young lynx that killed nine sheep over three nights in canton Schwyz’s Muotatal region has been shot dead by gamekeepers. The canton had received the green light from the federal authorities on August 16 for the cull.

A bright trail of light in the evening sky caused a sensation over large parts of southwestern Germany and Switzerland last night. Experts from the Federal Office of Civil Protection were quickly able to clear up the situation: according to them, the fast-moving, highly luminous celestial spectacle wasn’t a meteor but a Starlink satellite.

A parliamentary committee has approved the Swiss government’s approach to negotiating a new free trade agreement with China. Left-wing parties criticised the lack of binding regulations on the protection of human rights.

Switzerland will have to reduce its gas consumption again this winter. The government today set a voluntary target of 15% for October to March. The situation remains tense with regard to gas supplies to Europe, due to current geopolitical tensions, the government said.

The government also said it was backtracking on a ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants that was passed by voters in 2017. Today it rejected the “Electricity for all at all times (stop the blackout)” initiative but indicated that it supports in principle the lifting of the ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants.

Not small: Samuel Giger is considered one of the favourites. Keystone / Urs Flueeler

The anticipation is growing: the once-in-a-generation Federal Wrestling Anniversary Festival will be held in Appenzell on September 8. One Swiss Abroad will also be stepping into the sawdust.

Schwingen, as Swiss wrestling is known, is big business in Switzerland – in many senses. Crowds of more than 50,000 attend the Eidgenössische Schwing- and Älplerfest, the national wrestling and Alpine festival, which takes place every three years. The actual wrestlers are also not small: the 2019 “King of the Schwingers”, Christian Stucki, is 198cm and around 150kg.

The Eidgenössische JubiläumsschwingfestExternal link, the National Wrestling Anniversary Festival, has seats for only 18,000 spectators but it is steeped in history. The festival is linked to the creation of the Swiss Wrestling Federation in Bern in 1895. Four jubilee festivals have been held to date – to mark the 25th, 50th, 75th, 100th and, this year, 125th anniversaries (the 25-year interval has not always been strictly observed). As a result, wrestlers can take part only once in their career, if at all.

Only the 122 best wrestlers in Switzerland are allowed to take part, so it’s an honour just to be called up for the festival. The starting places are allocated according to the size of the federations: the Bernese and central Swiss federations each received 32 starting spots, the northeastern Swiss can send 31 wrestlers, the northwestern Swiss 14 and the southwestern Swiss 12. And the 122nd entrant? That’s Thomas Badat from Canada.

The 27-year-old farmer from Kingsey Falls, Quebec, is a mere 174cm and 85kg, but what he lacks in body mass he makes up for in enthusiasm. He and his brother Roger, who also wrestles and farms, had to get rid of their own sawdust wrestling ring to expand their cowshed – “we just worked harder in the gym”, Thomas told BlickExternal link a couple of years ago.

The Badats grew up as the sons of Swiss parents on a farm between Montréal and Quebec. “There’s a Swiss club in our neighbourhood where we cultivate Swiss traditions with other Canadian-Swiss people. In addition to the annual Jass tournament [a Swiss card game], we also wrestle,” Thomas explains. In 2022 the brothers, whose mother is from the Zurich Oberland and father from Gommiswald in St Gallen, northeastern Switzerland, competed in two wrestling festivals in Canada. Roger came second twice, while Thomas came top in both competitions.

How will Thomas fare against the local giants? We’ll be watching…

Keystone

“Ignazio in danger of dying out” was the alarming headline in some Swiss newspapers earlier this week. Has Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis (pictured) got something terminal?

As it turns out, it’s not so dramatic. “Since Ignazio Cassis was elected to the Federal Council in 2017, only one child in Switzerland has been baptised with the first name Ignazio – in 2019,” columnist Stefan Bühler wrote in CH Media newspapers, basing his not-fully-serious analysis on annual baby name figures recently released by the Federal Statistical Office.

“We know nothing about the parents’ motivation,” he continued. “Are they Cassis’s only fans? Or do they come from the growing group of news abstainers and have no idea about the [foreign minister]? The federal statisticians are keeping quiet.”

Bühler was on a roll and wanted to know how Ignazio compared with the six other member of the Federal Council, the Swiss government. “Only [Economics Minister] Guy Parmelin is in a similarly poor position,” he discovered. “Most recently, only one Guy per year was born in Switzerland. Except in 2021, when there were three. This must be a presidential effect, as Parmelin was head of the federal government at the time.”

However, the opposite is true of Parmelin’s Swiss People’s Party colleague. Albert has plummeted in popularity from 19 to 14 mentions since Rösti’s election to the Federal Council in January 2023. The loss of over 25% is almost exactly the same as that suffered by Interior Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider: the number of Elisabeths has dropped from 29 to 22 over the past two years.

But that’s still well ahead of Karin and Beat: in 2023 only three children each were given the first name of the respective finance minister and justice minister. “Nevertheless, this is probably the first officially documented similarity between Karin Keller-Sutter and Beat Jans,” Bühler reckoned.

That leaves Viola. Here the statistics show impressive stability over the past 12 years with 39 to 43 child births. “Federal President Viola Amherd obviously has no influence,” Bühler concluded.