In Geneva, the announced end of the schooling of students cross -border workers In the canton takes a legal and political turn. A collective, which brings together around forty families, launches two appeals against this measure and wants to carry the file before the Grand Council.
The two appeals will be filed before the Constitutional Chamber of Court of Justice, said on Monday before the press Anthony Lehmann, in the name of “School for all”. This collective denounces a brutal measure, unfair and contrary to the values of Geneva.
The decision to educate the students at their place of domicile dates from 2018, but was accompanied by a transitional provision. The canton thus accepted that the students cross -border workers who had started their schooling in Geneva or those with a brother or a sister who was educated there.
End of the transitional diet
The Council of State decided in June to put an end to this transitional regime, thus aligning with the practice of other cantons. From the start of the 2026 school year, the students cross -border workers can only stay until the end of the current teaching cycle.
According to the Department of Public Instruction (DIP), there are thus 2,000 students in less than four years. The vast majority of students cross -border workers (85%) are Swiss.
The appeals relate in particular to the violation of the right to basic education, to the disproportion of the measure and to the non-compliance with the separation of the powers. It is also a question of contesting the legality of the exclusion of students cross -border workers from the angle of free movement.
Backup clause
A first attempt to bend the canton on the tightening of the conditions of admission of the pupils cross -border workers had failed at the Federal Court in 2020. The collective noted on Monday that the legal path may not be sufficient and counts on political mobilization to flex the executive.
He recently sent a detailed argument to the Hundred Geneva deputies to obtain the support of a socialist motion which could be debated next week to the Grand Council. This text requires that children already engaged in the Geneva school system can finish their studies there.
“We want a safeguard clause so that all students can finish their complete course without interruption,” insisted Arwen Conod, member of the collective. “Excluding 1% of students will not lighten the schools, but will break life journeys,” according to Ms. Conod. The collective also deplores the lack of precise impact report on this measure.
Injustice fiscale
According to DIP, Geneva will save 27 million francs. The canton notably justifies this decision by the lack of places in schools and demographic pressure. “Yet the voltage zones do not correspond to the areas border“, The collective is surprised. He also denounces a tax injustice, because the cross -border workers Each year finance 800 million revenue for the canton.
But beyond the figures, the collective fears a devastating human impact with school failures and stress. The children, who are rooted in Geneva, will lose their friends, their teachers and will have to give up their extra-curricular activities, underlined the members of the collective.
Hatred
Often driven by the housing crisis to go into exile on the other side of the border, families border also fear stigma. Children and their families will be even more pointed out and exhibited on both sides of the border, according to the collective. And to note the surge of online hatred that each article arouses on the subject.
