RUETLI - Communes stacked wood for 1 August bonfires and printed menus for the morning onion tart. The Federal Council's official tone was cohesion, the army band and a warning against taking public services for granted.
In smaller halls the unofficial speeches were sharper. Sanctions on Russia, cooperation with NATO partners and the cost of the army all found a way into toasts that were supposed to be about 1291.
A tradition that still works
Paper lanterns along lake shores remain the image that sells. The political argument would take a formal shape later in the neutrality initiative.