In Switzerland are there many?

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MISTER EUROPE, angel in waiting

Hi 1st Lady,

No, there are not many interracial marriages in Switzerland, because Swiss people are very racist and selfish ( they even refused to join European Union).
But yes, sometimes, there are some Swiss guys that think they are more good-looking than other Europeans, and some American ladies believe them, lol.

Cheers,

Axel B.

Mr Who

Please be careful - you are mixing up interracial with bi-national!

As for interracial marriages, they now tend to become more frequent as several ethnical groups (mostly refugees from the eighties and nineties) come to the marriage age. Still, you can't say that there are "many" of them (or you would tell how "many" is defined).

Marriages betweeen neighbouring nationalities (Switzerland has five neighbours: France, Italy, Liechtenstein, Austria, Germany) have always been popular here. Additionally, with the Swiss travelling all over the world and nationals of the whole world visiting this tempting destination, bi-national marriages are "countless". If you want to know exact numbers, please visit the website of the Swiss statistical bureau: http://www.bfs.admin.ch/bfs/portal/en/index.html

Stefan

Yes definitely!

In 2007 49.7% of all marriages were bi-national. (So woman and men were citizens of different countries).

This is a very high percentage even if you consider the fact that Switzerland is a small country and around 20% of the inhabitants are foreign nationals.

Stan P

In working with the airlines, I have seen many Swiss couples here in the United States. If this is a representation of their population at large, there are very few interracial marriages there. I've never seen one.

62,040,610 Idiots

Keep in mind that bi-racial and bi-national marriages are two different things. Bi-national marriages, usually with German or English speakers, are fairly common. Bi-racial marriages are far more rare.

About 20% of the people in Switzerland are foreign and, like most European democracies, the cities are fairly liberal and tolerant. Thus, bi-national and bi-racial relationships are not out of the ordinary in places like Geneva and Zurich.

However, Switzerland is quite conservative and racist outside of the cities. The largest political party, the SVP (easily found with google) which polls up to 40% of the vote in some areas, essentially has a political platform that advocates expelling all foreigners. Consequently, in rural, conservative districts, mixed marriages between Swiss and other races or non-German speakers are going to be much more rare.

The racism shows up quite regularly in polite society in Switzerland, and Germans often comment that the nastier advertisements against foreigners would actually be illegal in Germany. For example, the SVP and other right wing parties commonly advertise against granting Swiss passports to dark skinned foreigners, and blame them for crimes. Also, it is quite common for non-Swiss kids to come home from school saying that they were taunted to 'go back to your country.'

Another thing to note is that the Swiss will consider someone from someplace like Serbia, Albania or Turkey to be a different, and undesirable, race. In the US, for example, I don't think most people would make those distinctions.

vitaminpez

Living in Switzerland I have seen both interracial and bi-national marriages.
In fact, I am American and my fiance is Turkish. We met in Zurich and that is where we plan to marry.
So, I believe it is common enough, especially with their neighboring countries like Germany and Austria. But just like any other country the majority of marriages is between Swiss men and Swiss women.

Jordan

That's very common practice in Switzerland and Europe in general. Lots of the time these families will be bilingual, so the children end up speaking a different language to both of the parents. It's Switzerland, German/French speaking bilingual families are very common the same goes for German/English.

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