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Swiss families priced out of Geneva and forced to live just across the border in France are reeling from another blow: their children are now being elbowed out of Genevan schools.<\/p>\n
The Geneva authorities’ decision to bar pupils who live in the Swiss city’s surrounding French suburbs and villages has left parents angry, children worried, and French municipalities fuming at having to absorb more than 2,000 extra kids into their classrooms.<\/p>\n
“We’ve become second-class Swiss citizens,” lamented Joana, a 35-year-old mother of two, declining to give her surname for professional reasons.<\/p>\n
Like many cross-border commuters, Joana, who works in healthcare, left Geneva due to the lack of affordable housing.<\/p>\n
“We agreed to leave our sub-standard home in the city centre to move to the countryside — but crossing the border was conditional on access to Swiss schools,” she told AFP.<\/p>\n
Home to numerous international institutions, Geneva is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in.<\/p>\n
Its position is geographically curious: the Swiss city is almost entirely surrounded by France. Nowhere in the Geneva canton is more than 5.5 kilometres (3.4 miles) from the French border.<\/p>\n
Around 115,000 people work in Geneva but live across the border, where the cost of living is cheaper.<\/p>\n
– ‘We’re not happy’ –<\/p>\n
The French village of Bossey is home to cross-border workers, many of them Swiss nationals who cannot afford to live in Geneva.<\/p>\n
Its mayor, Jean-Luc Pecorini, can see the border from his office, less than 100 metres away on the other side of the highway.<\/p>\n
“We’re not happy,” he told AFP, evoking a sentiment shared by other French mayors.<\/p>\n
He called Geneva’s decision — taken in June and coming into force at the start of the next school year in September 2026 — “abrupt”.<\/p>\n