Swiss Authorities Furious Over G7 Summit Policing Costs

GENEVA — Pay up, Paris.

That’s the message from Swiss authorities who are furious that they are being stuck with the bill for policing tens of thousands of protesters railing against a G7 summit taking place in neighboring France.

The Group of 7 leaders’ summit, which starts Monday, is happening just over the border in the French resort town of Evian-les-Bains, where leaders including Emmanuel Macron and Donald Trump will be discussing global trade imbalances and how to end the war in Ukraine.

But many of the leaders are arriving at Geneva’s international airport, the nearest one to Evian, and tens of thousands of protesters are gathering on the Swiss side of the border where they aim to stage rallies during the summit.

Cash-strapped France is refusing to contribute to the €21.7-€27.2 million cost of securing the border and policing the protests, according to Laurent Paoliello, communications director for Geneva’s security department.

Several Swiss politicians have proposed withholding funds owed to France as a way of forcing Paris to pay for the security costs, including retaining tax income due to the French to compensate for lost tax income from cross-border workers.

But Paoliello said such moves were “complicated” due to the fact that the exchanges of funds were enshrined in treaties. Geneva this year paid France €446 million as part of the 1973 treaty.

“We have established a pretty colossal security setup,” he said in a phone interview. “It would be elegant for them [France] to contribute financially for the consequences of their decisions.”

Swiss authorities are determined to avoid a repeat of protests that ravaged Geneva around a G8 summit in 2003 (Russia was previously a participant along with France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan and the United States, but was kicked out in 2014 after it annexed Crimea).

In addition to police, some 4,000 Swiss military personnel are being mobilized this week to oversee protests and staff border checkpoints, Paoliello said.

“It’s not the fact that Geneva is being used as the main travel hub for the summit — we can handle that. It’s everything else, namely the fact that we aren’t seeing any interest in handling the considerable costs linked to the summit itself,” he added.

Swiss police clashed with some 600-700 protesters on Monday, leading the protest to be forbidden after three hours. All other public rallies have been forbidden during the G7 summit.

Another bugbear: France has not seen fit to establish designated protest sites or “counter-summits,” as is occasionally done around controversial leader gatherings such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.