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Switzerland: Small town of Moutier wants to switch to a French

2021-03-28T20:31:47.377Z


A dispute over the "Jura question" had raged for years. Now the municipality of Moutier has voted for a change of canton from Basel to Jura. Before the vote, there should have been difficult-to-explain inflows.


The citizens of Moutier voted to belong to the Swiss canton of Jura (symbol picture)

Photo: DPA

The small Swiss town of Moutier will in future belong to the French-speaking part of Switzerland, according to the will of its residents.

As the voting office announced, 2,114 people voted for and 1740 against the change of canton from Bern to Jura.

The vote was supposed to end a decade-long dispute, but a sudden wave of influx had caused some irritation in advance.

In Moutier in northwestern Switzerland, which previously belonged to the canton of Bern, the "Jura question" has long been a matter of dispute.

When the French-speaking canton of Jura was created in 1978, the city with around 7500 inhabitants decided to continue to belong to the bilingual canton of Bern.

Several attempts had been made to split off from Bern over the decades, sometimes with drastic means.

In 1993, an activist died when a bomb he was carrying exploded.

Some of the residents believe that Moutier, as one of the larger cities in the canton of Jura, is better off than in the canton of Bern, where it is one of many small municipalities.

Since an earlier vote on the question was overturned in 2017 due to irregularities, special precautions were in place this Sunday.

Swiss authorities had sent election observers to ensure that the vote was carried out correctly.

Surprising arrivals in the run-up to the election

However, prior to the election, the public television broadcaster RTS, citing a letter from the cantonal authority in Bern, reported an increase in the number of people moving to Moutier prior to the vote.

In many cases, the connection between the newcomers and Moutier is difficult to understand.

However, after the vote, the Bernese government president Pierre Alain Schnegg emphasized that the canton would accept the election.

The residents of Moutier had clearly spoken out in favor of a change of canton.

bah / dpa

Source: spiegel

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