The Swiss are usually not given to the sort of tortured self-examination that consumes their German neighbors at regular intervals. Not for them the endless debates about national identity, their role in the world, or how to deal with globalisation: in all these areas, the Swiss with their unshakeable pragmatism have charted an independent, and highly successful, course.

But now, a string of sexual assaults committed mostly by foreigners or naturalized citizens has forced the Swiss to take a hard look at the way they deal with the country’s large foreign population, some 20 per cent of the total. (In Europe, only tiny Liechtenstein and Luxembourg have a higher share.)

Just last week, the media reported from Zurich that a 13-year-old girl had repeatedly been raped, over a period of several weeks, by a gang of around ten adolescents
The Swiss are usually not given to the sort of tortured self-examination that consumes their German neighbors at regular intervals. Not for them the endless debates about national identity, their role in the world, or how to deal with globalisation: in all these areas, the Swiss with their unshakeable pragmatism have charted an independent, and highly successful, course.

But now, a string of sexual assaults committed mostly by foreigners or naturalized citizens has forced the Swiss to take a hard look at the way they deal with the country’s large foreign population, some 20 per cent of the total. (In Europe, only tiny Liechtenstein and Luxembourg have a higher share.)

Just last week, the media reported from Zurich that a 13-year-old girl had repeatedly been raped, over a period of several weeks, by a gang of around ten adolescents (including her boyfriend), all of them of foreign extraction.

Read More