Raymond Loretan deliberately conflate two things: the reality of a demographic challenge… and the instrumentalisation of this challenge to justify any policy.
A country with an ageing population does not need a permanent demographic leap forward. It needs clarity, responsibility, and coherence.
Replacing ageing with continuous, artificial population growth is merely postponing the problem, not solving it. It’s a cavalry-like logic: ever more inhabitants to finance the previous ones, at the cost of increased pressure on infrastructure, housing, wages, and social cohesion.
Slogans, precisely, are those that aim to make us believe that there is only one path: that of unlimited growth.
Reality is more demanding.
A sustainable policy is:
– value local work
– increase real productivity
– smartly adapts social systems
– investing in training and innovation
– and above all, mastering our demographic trajectory
What the «No 10 Million Swiss» initiative proposes is not a slogan. It's a marker. A limit. A societal choice.
The real question is simple: do we want to steer our future – or be subject to it?
Those who sit on a multitude of boards of directors can afford to reason in abstract streams. The Swiss people, on the other hand, live in reality: overcrowded trains, soaring rents, strained public services.
So no, refusing to forge ahead is not a slogan.
It may, on the contrary, be the last act of responsibility.