A outgoing president of the Union of Swiss Associations of France (UASF), Françoise Millet-Leroux has worked to strengthen the visibility and cohesion of the largest Swiss community abroad for ten years. A mandate that has not always been a long, quiet river.
This content was published on 07 May 2025 – 14:00
Emilie Ridard
Emigration, return to Switzerland, family, schooling, pensions, banks, insurance … I am interested in the Swiss who live abroad and informs them about the subjects that occupy them and concern them on a daily basis or more broadly. Passionate about languages and cultures, my professional career has made a little detour through marketing and assistantship before crossing the journalism route, in a position which allows me, moreover, to converse with the whole world.
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Françoise Millet-Leroux is a woman in the outskirts. As part of the 65e congress of the UASFExternal linkwhich took place on April 25 and 26 in the small thermal station of Amélie-les-Bains (Pyrénées-Orientales), the one that became Swiss by marriage sixty years ago returns without tongue of wood over ten years spent at the head of the largest association of Swiss clubs in the world.
Swissinfo.ch: Françoise Millet-Leroux, you leave the presidency of the UASF after ten years of engagement. Why did you decide to take the relay now?
Françoise Millet Leroux: My commitment to the UASF dates back even further, since I have four delegate mandates to the Council of the Swiss abroad to my assets, i.e. 16 years. I became president a little by chance in 2015.
Today, I leave the presidency of the UASF because I have to know how to stop. I am 78 years old and I think the time has come to make room for other people, younger and more in line with current mentalities. For example, I don’t really like social networks, even if I know how to use them. I am of the “paper” generation.
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What assessment do you draw from your mandate?
I regret not having succeeded in bringing together all the Swiss associations under the banner of the UASF. Out of 68 associations in France, 52 are members. There is also still a lot of work to publicize the importance and usefulness of the UASF with all the Swiss in France.
On the other hand, I am very proud to have appeased the very harsh tensions between 2013 and 2015 at the UASF and to have strengthened its visibility. Today, the UASF is recognized as the official and undisputed representative of the Swiss in France.
My best success, in my eyes, remains the creation of a scholarship in the amount of 5000 euros in favor of a Swiss student from France and member of the UASF, who wishes to study in Switzerland. It will be allocated for the first time this year. Its funding, over four years, has been ensured in the vast majority by the raffles organized during each UASF congress since 2022. But I cannot promise that it will be renewed, this decision is now the responsibility of the new management of the UASF.
You were president during the COVIR period in 2020 and 2021. How did the UASF go through this crisis?
It was a difficult period. The 2021 elections had to be done by correspondence, with a count organized by the embassy. The UASF Committee also asked associations to continue to pay their contributions, even if the activities were stopped, as a sign of support for the principles and ideas that these friends represent and defend. In the word “friendly”, there is the word “friend”, and we do not give up a friend because he is weakened. On the contrary, it is supported.
-Unfortunately, the associations lost many members during the pandemic. In addition, a kind of lethargy have settled and people have no longer necessarily re -registered in associations after the pandemic. Some clubs found themselves in financial difficulty and was sometimes accused of the UASF for not having provided financial support. The organization simply could not afford it.
One of the positive sides is that we have discovered and adopted virtual meetings, which has since greatly facilitated our exchanges.
With more than 212,000 Swiss nationals, France brings together the world’s largest community in the world. Nevertheless, the latter is not very visible on social networks. How is it?
I would say for lack of time. We are all volunteers. Some of us are even active. So it is not easy to manage a real presence on social networks, very time -consuming.
In addition, the majority of the Swiss in France are binational. They are attached to their local club, but not necessarily eager to integrate into a broader, electronic and virtual structure, moreover.
Do you have to save the clubs that are struggling to renew themselves?
They must evolve to survive. If clubs do not adapt to new realities, they will disappear. In Bordeaux, for example, an intergenerational dynamic has made it possible to maintain a good activity. Other clubs also succeed, fortunately! But the associations made up only of older members, without renewal announced or possible, are in danger.
If the future of the diaspora is no longer played in clubs, then where?
Clubs must be opened to wider subjects, establish bridges with Swiss political life, encourage participation in webinars in the organization of the Swiss abroad (OSE), organize conference cycles … The options are multiple.
There is, in my opinion, a real gap between the objectives of the OSE and the reality of the members in associations. Many are not interested or no longer really in Swiss political life. They like to keep an emotional link with Switzerland, but from a distance.
Even if the electronic vote were to be generalized, I am not sure that it would lead to a significant increase in participation. The disinterest often comes from further away than the only technical questions.
Now released from your responsibilities at the UASF, how are you going to occupy your time?
I have twenty years of photos to sort! More seriously, I want to refocus a little on myself: finding my friends, taking care of my grandchildren, playing golf, traveling … and, as a member of the Napoleonic memory, but also from a very young age, I dream of being able to go to Sainte-Hélène. I hope to finally go there, for my 80th birthday, in 2026.
A final word for UASF members?
Union is strength. I invite all the Swiss in France to support the action of the UASF and to trust it.
I end my serene mandate, without regret or sadness, happy and grateful to have been able to live and share this very enriching human experience.
Reread and verified by Samuel Jaberg
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