“My French wife pointed out to me that in all the Swiss articles, we talked about money,” a friend from Geneva told us. Well, it may also be necessary to add the official Vaudois communications. The cantonal parliament has in fact accepted a right-wing resolution asking the government to no longer use the term “free”. Instead, one MP would like “funded by taxpayers”. Just to make it clear the value of certain services…
The left opposed it, believing that it risked making official communication more complicated and that the beneficiaries of these benefits already knew that they had a cost borne by someone. But the word free has not yet disappeared from the Vaudois vocabulary. The motion is not binding, and nothing says that the cantonal government will accept it.
The debate in any case makes sense, at least in certain areas. If putting “entrance financed by taxpayers” rather than “free” for a museum seems a bit absurd, there are other fields where the question arises. For example, the free public transport that certain cities offer in France, such as Montpellier or Dunkirk. Because there is a political choice behind it: depending on whether it is the user who pays part of it or everyone’s taxes, there are different advantages and disadvantages.
In Switzerland, the question does not arise, since universal free access is unconstitutional. The federal court asked Friborg to reserve it for targeted population categories, which is why Geneva chose to only give it to 18-24 year olds at the end of last May.
#Swiss
