G7 Summit: France and Switzerland Brace for Protests with Border Restrictions

French and Swiss authorities will impose a week of pandemic-like border restrictions as U.S. President Donald Trump and other leaders attend a G7 summit starting Monday while organizers fear potentially violent protests.

The summit of some of the world's richest nations from June 15-17 in the French town of Evian-les-Bains on Lake Geneva is meant to discuss the Middle East, Ukraine and global economic imbalances.

In nearby Geneva, Switzerland, business owners and local leaders want to avoid a repeat of violent protests that smashed storefronts on the sidelines of the G8 summit in 2003, when Russia was in the club of nations.

Protests are nothing new around such elite gatherings. This time, activists want to demonstrate frustration with Trump’s leadership on issues as diverse as tariffs, the war in Iran and the climate, or even highlight his past ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Authorities in Geneva and activist groups including environmentalists, feminists and foes of capitalism are facing off over the right to protest and the right to protection from those who target symbols of corporate and political power.

“As the G7 meets in Evian, France, to plan the destruction of peoples, the exploitation of life and the domination of bodies, let us organize our resistance against fascism and imperialism,” the No G7 coalition of anti-capitalism groups said in its call for a “large-scale internationalist mobilization against this meeting.”

Businesses have been boarding up storefronts in Geneva, a center for United Nations offices, while some institutions like the World Trade Organization, which faced anti-capitalist protests in Seattle in the 1990s, are closing offices and instructing staff to work remotely.

Switzerland, a rich Alpine country, is not among the G7 membership that includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.S.

G7 also brings airspace restrictions

France and Switzerland have struck a military cooperation agreement on G7 summit security. The arriving leaders will pass through the airport in Geneva, which is 95% surrounded by France and connected to the rest of Switzerland by a strip of land.

The Swiss government said the army will deploy some 4,000 personnel to support police. Operations will include airspace restrictions, patrols on Lake Geneva and roadway restrictions. Seven of the 35 roadway border crossings will remain open. Geneva also is closing a major park where activists wanted to congregate.

France will deploy more than 13,000 police and gendarmerie officers to ensure security in the summit area just over the border. Over 800 French border control officers will be active, up from about 60 normally.

France also has introduced special permits for residents of Evian, perhaps best known for its bottled water, and environs while cordoning off a zone around the Hotel Royal where the leaders will meet.

There is an authorized march on June 14. Public gatherings not previously planned are banned.

Cedric Dupont, a professor of international relations at the Geneva Graduate Institute, said authorities were “overreacting” with such stringent security measures that will impact the economy and people, alluding to the long lines at the border during the COVID crisis.

“It seems that they have not learned the lesson,” he said, noting that protesters can find their way to Geneva by traveling from other parts of Switzerland. “It’s just creating more problems than actually solving them.”

Residents and businesses prepare for disruption

Over 110,000 cross-border workers commute daily from France to Geneva, France's Foreign Ministry says.

French authorities have advised people to postpone nonessential travel and work from home when possible.

Lake crossings by boat, also used by commuters, have been moved from Evian to other ferry landings outside restricted areas. Recreational water activities, including paddleboarding and swimming, will be allowed outside the summit area as the summer season begins, authorities said.

The Geneva canton, or state, has set up a 6 million Swiss franc ($7.6 million) fund for businesses that incur damage related to G7 protests.

“Unrest cannot be ruled out,” authorities have said.

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