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National Day at the Rütli and 1 August addresses
On 1 August, Alain Berset is the speaker at the Rütli celebration, organised by the Swiss Society for the Common Good (SGG/SSUP) on the theme of cohesion. Some 1,300 guests. He defends compromise as the foundation of Swiss success, and the balance between economic and social needs, the country’s “eigentliche Geheimformel”. Without equal opportunities in education and on the labour market, he says, potential is left untapped. He also opens the Rütli Museum, in a former barn, with the exhibition “Heimat – eine Grenzerfahrung” by the Stapferhaus Lenzburg. The anthem is sung twice, to the traditional text and to the new text proposed by the SGG.
The television address is filmed in a room of Berne’s old town hall where, he says, the 1848 Constitution was adopted. The message: Switzerland depends on clear international rules, and other states “are not only competitors, they are also potential partners”. Conclusion: “Switzerland’s success is indivisible.”
A video address goes to the 752,000 Swiss abroad, “the third-largest Swiss canton – after Zurich and Berne, but ahead of Vaud”.
Speeches on this site
- 1. August (in German, French-language page)
- 1. August – TV-Ansprache (in German, French-language page)
- Allocution du 1er août aux Suisses de l’étranger (French-language page)
Sources