‘No’ to Europe Leaves 2 Swiss Towns on Opposite Sides of Internal Frontier

There are no borders separating the villages of Sierre and Salgesch in western Switzerland, only a few acres of grapevines and a burbling mountain stream called La Raspille.

But after Sunday’s national referendum, called to decide Switzerland’s role in Europe, the cultural wall separating the two Rhone River valley towns, one French-speaking and the other German-speaking, had never seemed so formidable. On a wet Monday afternoon, a blanket of powdery snow covering the steep hillsides leading down to the Rhone, it was hard to believe they were even part of the same country.

“I have never seen such a cleavage,” complained Marcel Antille, 38, owner of a sporting goods store here in Sierre, the French-speaking town. “You cross La Raspille and you encounter a completely different mentality. I’ll never understand those high valley people.”

Although Sierre and Salgesch, the German-speaking town, are only two miles apart, they are on opposite sides of an internal frontier.

The high valley people speak German and trace their roots back 700 years to William Tell and the founding of Germanic Switzerland; the low valley people speak French and feel more at home with the gregarious, raucous Savoyards from the mountains in neighboring France.

“They are more linear, preoccupied with their own interests,” Antille said as he stood next to a display of ski boards in the basement of his store. “We are more open, not so fearful of the big bad wolf--Europe.”

On Sunday, Swiss voters rejected the proposal to join the 19-nation European Economic Area, considered tantamount to eventual full membership in the European Community and, therefore, to partial abandonment of Switzerland’s traditional neutrality. Considered the most important vote in Switzerland since the constitution was established in 1848, the referendum was supported by nearly all the mainstream political leaders and most banks and businesses.

But in a country long held up as an international example of how different ethnic and linguistic groups can get along, the results were sobering: The country’s German-speaking majority overwhelmingly opposed the proposal, while the minority French-speakers overwhelmingly supported it. The proposal lost by a tiny margin in the popular vote and carried only seven of the 23 Swiss cantons or states.

Switzerland, with a population of 6.8 million, is made up of three main ethnic-linguistic groups: Germans (65%), French (19%) and Italians (10%). The remaining 6% of the Swiss people speak other languages.

In Sierre, a working-class town where the main employer is the Alusuisse aluminum plant, the people turned out massively in support of joining the new European economic trade bloc, with 70% of the population voting for the proposal.

Across the creek in Salgesch, a celebrated Swiss winemaking village, the mayor, or “communal president,” as they are called in Switzerland, reported that the people voted just as strongly (70%) against the referendum.

Salgesch Mayor Amedee Mounir, 50, financial officer for an aluminum company, said he personally voted for the idea of breaking Switzerland out of its protective shell and becoming a full partner in Europe. But he had trouble persuading his constituents to do so.

“Many of them were afraid that their national identity was at stake,” Mounir said. “They were afraid that the European idea would bring too many foreigners here. They feared cheap labor would come from Eastern Europe and lower their salaries.”

The breakdown on linguistic lines occurred on every level of the Swiss political scene--canton by canton, village by village and even house by house. Only one majority German-speaking canton, the important industrial center of Basel in the northwest, voted with the French-speakers.

On Monday, a sentiment of rejection swept through Francophone Switzerland. The French newspaper Tribune de Geneve published a huge headline in red ink on its front page that blared: “Nein! The German-Speakers Impose Isolation on the French-Speakers.” The Lausanne-based Nouveau Quotitien headline read like an epitaph: “Switzerland. Isolated and Divided.”

For many, the vote proved that tiny, smug, rich Switzerland is not immune to the ethnic and linguistic divisions that increasingly plague the rest of Europe, from Bosnia-Herzegovina in the south to Northern Ireland in north.

“We’ve known for years that the chasm between the two regions has been growing,” said Tribune de Geneve Editor Guy Mettan. “But often out of patriotism, sometimes because of blindness and also because of self-interest we have continued to deny it.”

The defeated Swiss referendum was also on the front pages of major newspapers across Europe, where it was widely viewed as another setback for the struggling EC, which badly wanted rich, high-technology Switzerland in its camp.

Leading French newspaper Le Monde cited the vote as another example of the “Euro-skepticism” sweeping Europe. Le Figaro, another important French newspaper, began a front-page editorial, “Switzerland has said no to Europe.”

Stunned by the bitterness of feelings caused by the referendum, Swiss political leaders Monday called for a period of healing and rebuilding of the “bridges” between the communities.

Sierre Mayor Charles Antille, no relation to the sports shop owner of the same name, joined in the chorus of public officials calling for peace between the communities.

“It’s clear that the French-speaking part of Switzerland is furious at the German-speaking part,” Antille said before meeting with local businessmen to assess the post-referendum damage. “There is discontent with our co-citizens, but, still, no one is talking secession.”