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Article: An odd populist: Switzerland. (Swiss People's Party leader Christoph Blocher opposes a plan to set up a fund to reimburse Holocaust victims)(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- November 15, 1997
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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CHRISTOPH BLOCHER is a conundrum. Like other European populists, Mr Blocher is a nationalist, nervous about foreigners and critical of the European Union. But unlike Austria's JCorg Haider and France's Jean-Marie Le Pen, who champion change and rail against fat-cats who give jobs to foreigners, Mr Blocher is an ardent defender of the status quo. Moreover, though he wants tighter asylum laws and has backed a campaign to cap the number of foreigners at 16% of the population, he owns a company, Ems Chemie, with a workforce in Switzerland that is over a quarter foreign.
Mr Blocher's burning wish is to keep Switzerland neutral. His weapon is the referendum, the ...