When the population in Davos surges next week during the World Economic Forum’s annual gathering, residents of the Swiss town will grit their teeth and suffer through the overcrowding, traffic chaos and disruption. After all, local stores, offices and even churches earn big sums renting out space to the elite crowd.
The headache lasts just a week, but the feelings in the mountain town are symbolic of tensions playing out all year round across Switzerland. And unlike in Davos, the Swiss increasingly feel that globalization has become a Faustian pact they’re no longer happy with.
Similar to countries from the United States to France and the United Kingdom, worries about immigration and sovereignty are top of people’s minds. The population has grown about five times faster than the neighboring European Union over the past decade as foreign workers were drawn in by high wages and quality of life. About 27% of the people living there aren’t Swiss citizens.