On the advent of the European Football Championships the SVP (Swiss Peoples Party) seem determined to present Switzerland to our 600,00 foreign guests in poor light.
If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you'll remember the black sheep of last August...
Well now the SVP has revived a four-year-old campaign to show our guests just how discriminating the Swiss are - racially discriminating, that is.
'Go home, foreigners!'

The campaign is aimed at the prevention of mass-nationalisation.
Now mass-nationalisation really does sound bad - I agree with you!
Just envisage those millions and millions of criminal Africans and Asians* lining up to pick up a free, red passport.
That, however, is not what it's all about! It is about people who were born here in Switzerland.

There are a few foreign families here that stuck it out long enough to have produced a third generation.
What does that mean?
... well, it means that Grandma and Grandad originally came from Italy or Germany, their kids were born here and, in the meantime, produced kids of their own.
What nationality are those new arrivals (some of them now in their 20s and 30s)?
Italian or German, of course!

'Hang on', a couple of liberal thinkers have said, 'that can't be right, the parents were born and raised in Switzerland as were their children - they are Swiss, right?'
Nope!

The third generation children are as alien as their grandparents.
No matter that they were born in Switzerland, have never visited the country their grandparents came from, let alone speak their language - they are aliens and, as such, are unwanted!
Oh, no - they aren't discriminated in any other way, they are allowed to pay their taxes just the same as anyone else. They can't vote, of course - we can't have foreigners voting, now can we. That would just go to prove that they are even taking an interest in the country they were born in and are an integral part of society.
Tut, tut, tut...

Now of course - if they care to pay for the privilege of being accepted as Swiss citizens - that is a different matter entirely. We'll take their money gladly. I mean, let's face it, they're probably more Swiss than their Swiss neighbours!

The placards, which are being hung up everywhere just in time for the arrival of our guests, depict brown and yellow hands grasping for Swiss passports out of a box. Clearly immoral! Criminal, you could even say.

Just that the SVP has their own version of the facts again...

* Sorry if you happen to be African or Asian - this is just meant to serve as an example.