Swiss Elections & Politics (Next election 2019)

[tpfkaw]

Switzerland is remarkable in many ways, but its political stability is certainly one of them. An election in which no party gains or loses more than 2.8% of the popular vote is a "political earthquake." The last time big brother Germany had an election in which no party gained or lost more than 2.8% was in 1907.

[tpfkaw]

A few days before the election took place Parmelin attracted some attention because of his non-existing English skills. When a journalist asked him a question in English Parmelin literally replied "I can English understand mais je préfère répondre en français pour être plus précis".

Was that a foreign journalist, or has English become the lingua franca in Switzerland? When I visited German-speaking Switzerland, I usually started conversations in French for practice, but a lot of the time people people switched to English. Was that just because of my American accent or because I need to work on my French skills a little more?