Diplomatic relations between France and Switzerland have traditionally been close, through important economic and cultural exchanges. Switzerland and France (which is part of the European Union), share about 600 km of border (prompting strong cross-border cooperation) and a language (French is one of Switzerland's four official languages).
French-Swiss relations date back to the Middle Ages, when the Kingdom of France and the Old Swiss Confederacy established close contacts. The good neighborly relations ended when revolutionary France invaded Switzerland and established the Helvetic Republic in 1798. Switzerland remained a French vassal state until 1813. At the Congress of Vienna, Switzerland was granted small areas of French territory as compensation and Swiss independence was restored. After that, France respected Swiss neutrality and relations remained peaceful. In the early 21st century, both countries maintain friendly relations.
Conflicts between the Old Swiss Confederacy first arose in the 13th century during the Hundred Years' War, when French mercenaries who had lost their jobs during breaks in fighting invaded north-western Switzerland. In 1444, the Armagnacs invaded Switzerland in support of the Habsburgs. After the Battle of St. Jakob an der Birs, the Dauphin of France was impressed by the fighting power of the Confederacy and concluded a peace treaty with the Swiss. The French tried to bind the Confederacy to them through bilateral agreements, and in 1474/75 a military alliance was formed against the Burgundians. Numerous mercenaries from Switzerland fought for the French kings. During the Transalpine campaigns of the Old Swiss Confederacy, however, a conflict arose between France, the Confederacy and other powers over the control of northern Italy.[1] In the Battle of Marignano (1515), the Swiss were finally defeated by the troops of Francis I and driven out of Milan.[1] In 1516, France and Switzerland signed a Treaty of Perpetual Peace ("paix perpétuelle"). A military treaty was signed in 1521, which the protective power of the Confederacy against the Habsburgs.[2] This established an alliance between the two sides lasting centuries.[1]
With the occupation of Savoy by France, the Swiss conquered the Vaud and Chablais regions and could better protect Geneva. The Treaty of Lyon (1601) between France and Savoy made France and Switzerland neighbors. The French kings borrowed large sums of money from the Swiss, which facilitated the emergence of Switzerland as a financial center from the 16th century onwards. However, the payment discipline of the French often left much to be desired. In 1601, the debts of the French crown to the Swiss amounted to 11.6 million gold crowns. Pensions for military service were also often paid late. During the war against the Augsburg Alliance, 37,220 Swiss fought in the French infantry and 22,620 during the War of the Austrian Succession. Most of the mercenaries in French service came from the rural and Catholic areas of Switzerland and some later settled in France.[1]
French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars
French invasion of Switzerland (1798)
The Swiss nobility aligned itself with France and French-speaking Swiss thinkers such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau also attracted a great deal of attention in France and influenced the French Enlightenment, which demonstrates the close contact between the two countries. It was not until the French Revolution (1789) that the political and military alliance between the two countries came to an end. The revolution initially aroused sympathy in Switzerland, but the revolutionary terror soon made the Swiss fearful. The fact that numerous anti-revolutionary aristocrats from France found refuge in Switzerland, while the Helvetic Club in Paris called for the revolution to be extended to Switzerland, caused additional discord on both sides. The French terminated the military alliance with the Swiss and diplomatic relations were suspended in 1792. The suspension of mutual trade and the interruption of payments for Swiss mercenaries hit Switzerland hard economically.[1]
With the start of the Coalition Wars, Switzerland declared itself neutral. In 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte nevertheless decided to invade Switzerland, as it occupied a strategically important position north of Italy and was prosperous. After the French invasion, the Helvetic Republic was established as a Napoleonic sister republic under French influence. Under Napoleon, numerous modernizing reforms were introduced, including the abolition of the feudal system, the introduction of a modern administration and the creation of a national army. The greater political centralization of Switzerland was also initiated. Napoleon imposed the Act of Mediation on the Swiss after internal disputes and the French annexed or occupied numerous Swiss territories such as Geneva, Mulhouse and Neuchâtel and made Valais an independent republic in 1802, which they also annexed to France in 1810. Switzerland was also plundered economically and had to pay high war levies, which caused discontent among the population.[1]
Relations after the Congress of Vienna
With the defeat of the French in the coalition wars, France had to return all the annexed territories. With the Second Treaty of Paris, France also ceded some municipalities to Switzerland, giving Geneva a land link with the rest of Switzerland and making the Pays de Gex region a free zone. However, the post-revolutionary mercenary system and the old Swiss trading privileges were not restored. After 1815, trade disputes, the Swiss right of asylum for political refugees and French interference in Switzerland's internal affairs strained relations. In 1857, France's Napoleon III mediated in the Treaty of Paris (1857) in the Neuchâtel dispute between Prussia and Switzerland. In 1860, the annexation of Savoy by France led to a political crisis with Switzerland, which was settled by the Savoy trade, which created a neutral zone south of Lake Geneva to which Switzerland had laid claim. Four years later, the two countries concluded a trade agreement. Relations subsequently improved.[1]
A competition for influence in Switzerland developed in the late 19th century between the German Empire and France, for example in the construction of railroad lines. Switzerland remained neutral during the First World War, although France considered occupying Switzerland. Despite its neutrality, however, the war divided Switzerland internally, as German-speaking Switzerland sympathized with the German Empire, while French-speaking Switzerland was close to France. This division was reinforced by the propaganda of the war parties, which was disseminated in the respective language areas. The Swiss government tried to mediate between the warring parties. Switzerland also played an important role as a mediator in the interwar period, for example during the Locarno Treaties (1925). During the German occupation of France in the Second World War, Switzerland recognized the Vichy government until 1944 and maintained its neutral position during the war. The Swiss tried to prevent a mass exodus of people persecuted by the Nazi regime from France to Switzerland through a restrictive asylum policy.[1]
Signing of a bilateral agreement (2015)
In the post-war period, Franco-Swiss relations normalized after disputes such as the continued presence of French Vichy collaborators in Switzerland were resolved. Some strains in the mutual relationship were caused by Swiss fears of French support for Jura separatism, the Mirage affair and ongoing disputes over French tax evasion in Switzerland. In 1981, the Socialists in France introduced a tax on wealth transfers to Switzerland and in 1998 a cooperation agreement was signed between the two countries on police, legal and customs matters.[1] Economic exchange was significantly intensified as part of European unification. However, Switzerland's application to join the EU was rejected in referendums in 1992 and 2001.
Political relations
France has been appointing ambassadors to Switzerland since the 16th century and Switzerland's first representation abroad, in 1798, was in French capital Paris (closely followed by a consulate in Bordeaux). By the end of the 19th century, the only country with a legation in the Swiss capital Bern was France.[3]
France is Switzerland's third-largest trading partner (after Germany and Italy)[3] and the two are integrated economically via Swiss treaties with the European Union. Switzerland is also part of the Schengen Area, which abolishes border checks between member states. 220,000 French nationals cross the border to work in Switzerland,[5] half of all foreign cross-border commuters.[3][6]
Migration
The almost 200,000 Swiss in France form the largest group of Swiss abroad, while almost 185,000 French have their permanent residence in Switzerland.[6]
Resident diplomatic missions
France has an embassy in Bern and consulates-general in Geneva and Zürich.[7]
↑ (in French) Olivier Perrin, "1910, 1983, 1998: trois présidents de la République en Suisse", Le Temps, 15 April 2015 (page visited on 15 April 2015).
↑ (in French) Xavier Alonso, "Comment la France et la Suisse se sont réconciliées", 24 heures, Friday 10 April 2015.
Since 1848 the Swiss Confederation has been a federal republic of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of federation that goes back more than 700 years, putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.
The Helvetic Republic was a sister republic of France that existed between 1798 and 1803, during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was created following the French invasion and the consequent dissolution of the Old Swiss Confederacy, marking the end of the ancien régime in Switzerland. Throughout its existence, the republic incorporated most of the territory of modern Switzerland, excluding the cantons of Geneva and Neuchâtel and the old Prince-Bishopric of Basel.
The Protestant Reformation in Switzerland was promoted initially by Huldrych Zwingli, who gained the support of the magistrate, Mark Reust, and the population of Zürich in the 1520s. It led to significant changes in civil life and state matters in Zürich and spread to several other cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy. Seven cantons remained Catholic, however, which led to intercantonal wars known as the Wars of Kappel. After the victory of the Catholic cantons in 1531, they proceeded to institute Counter-Reformation policies in some regions. The schism and distrust between the Catholic and the Protestant cantons defined their interior politics and paralysed any common foreign policy until well into the 18th century.
During the French Revolutionary Wars, the revolutionary armies marched eastward, enveloping Switzerland in their battles against Austria. In 1798, Switzerland was completely overrun by the French and was renamed the Helvetic Republic. The Helvetic Republic encountered severe economic and political problems. In 1798 the country became a battlefield of the Revolutionary Wars, culminating in the Battles of Zürich in 1799.
The Old Swiss Confederacy, also known as Switzerland or the Swiss Confederacy, was a loose confederation of independent small states, initially within the Holy Roman Empire. It is the precursor of the modern state of Switzerland.
A protecting power is a country that represents another sovereign state in a country where it lacks its own diplomatic representation. It is common for protecting powers to be appointed when two countries break off diplomatic relations with each other. The protecting power is responsible for looking after the protected power's diplomatic property and citizens in the hosting state. If diplomatic relations were broken by the outbreak of war, the protecting power will also inquire into the welfare of prisoners of war and look after the interests of civilians in enemy-occupied territory.
The Valais Republic or Vallais was a sister republic of France that existed between 1802 and 1810 in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, during the Napoleonic Wars, in territory corresponding to the modern Swiss canton of Valais.
British–Portuguese relations are foreign relations between Portugal and the United Kingdom. The relationship, largely driven by the nations' common interests as maritime countries on the edge of Europe and close to larger continental neighbours, dates back to the Middle Ages in 1373 with the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance. The two countries now enjoy a friendly and close relationship. Both countries are members of the Council of Europe and NATO.
Polish–French relations are relations between the nations of Poland and France, which date back several centuries.
Denmark–Russia relations are the relations between the countries of Denmark and Russia. The Kings of Denmark and the Russian Tsars interacted from the 15th century onwards – subsequently Denmark's control of access to and from the Baltic Sea had considerable significance for the trade and naval flexibility of the Russian Empire, while rivalries between Denmark and Sweden on the one hand and between Sweden and Russia on the other led to alliances and military support. Denmark and the USSR established diplomatic relations on 18 June 1924.
France–Russia relations, also known as Franco-Russian relations or Russo-French relations, have seldom been friendly.
Foreign relations exist between Austria and France. Both countries have had diplomatic relations with each other since the Middle Ages. Both countries are full members of the Council of Europe and the European Union.
Foreign relations exist between the alpine nations of Austria and Switzerland. Both countries have had diplomatic relations since the Middle Ages. The Habsburgs, who ruled Austria for more than six centuries, are originally from Aargau, Switzerland. The two countries are predominantly German-speaking. Austria has an embassy in Bern, a general consulate in Zürich and seven honorary consulates. Switzerland has an embassy in Vienna and six honorary consulates. Together, both countries organized the Euro 2008.
Foreign relations exist between Austria and Italy. Austria has an embassy in Rome, a general consulate in Milan. Italy has an embassy in Vienna, a consulate in Innsbruck. Both countries are full members of the Council of Europe, European Union, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The countries share 420 km of common borders.
Diplomatic relations between Germany and Switzerland are Switzerland's closest. There are over 200 agreements between Switzerland and Germany; and between Switzerland and the European Union (EU), of which Germany is a member. Switzerland is also part of the EU's Schengen Area which abolishes international borders between Schengen states.
The territorial evolution of Switzerland occurred primarily with the acquisition of territory by the historical cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy and its close associates. This gradual expansion took place in two phases, the growth from the medieval Founding Cantons to the "Eight Cantons" during 1332–1353, and the expansion to the "Thirteen Cantons" of the Reformation period during 1481–1513.
International relations between France and Italy occur on diplomatic, political, military, economic, and cultural levels, officially the Italian Republic, and its predecessors, the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (1814–1861) and the Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946).
The history of Geneva dates from before the Roman occupation in the second century BC. Now the principal French-speaking city of Switzerland, Geneva was an independent city state from the Middle Ages until the end of the 18th century. John Calvin was the Protestant leader of the city in the 16th century.
The nations of France and Mexico established diplomatic relations in 1830. Initially, relations between both nations were unstable as a result of France's first and second interventions in Mexico. During World War II Mexico did not recognize Vichy France, instead it maintained diplomatic relations with the French government in exile in London. Diplomatic relations were restored between both nations at the end of the war in 1945 and have continued unabated since.
France–Portugal relations are the current and historical relations between France and Portugal. Both nations are members of the Council of Europe, European Union, NATO, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Union for the Mediterranean and the United Nations.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
