Cornavin and the Border Feel the January Return of Frontaliers

GENEVA - French-registered cars stacked up at Thonex-Vallard and Bardonnex as frontaliers returned from the holiday fortnight. TPG trams toward Cornavin were standing-room only before 7:30. CFF trains from Annemasse carried the same mix of hospital staff, bankers and shop workers they carry every January.

The canton still depends on those crossings. About 100,000 people commute into Geneva from France on a normal weekday. Housing on the Swiss side is the reason many of them live a few kilometres over the line.

A labour market with a customs post

Unions want simpler permits. Communes on the Swiss bank want parking controls. Both arguments will return when parliament talks wages in the spring.