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La stratégie actuelle 2020-2023 de la promotion économique met un accent particulier sur les technologies d’avenir et s’adresse aux entreprises innovantes. (Photo d’illustration)

KEYSTONE/Christian Beutler

Deux cent vingt entreprises étrangères ont choisi de s’implanter en Suisse en 2020, créant 1168 emplois lors de leur première année d’activité. Au total, ces sociétés ont prévu de créer environ 3600 emplois d’ici trois ans, un chiffre en hausse de 21% par rapport à 2019.

Cette évolution positive est intervenue malgré les conditions difficiles du marché, souligne vendredi la Conférence des chefs des départements cantonaux de l’économie publique (CDEP). Celle-ci recense chaque année les implantations qui ont pu se concrétiser grâce au travail des organismes cantonaux, régionaux et nationaux de promotion économique.

Même si les 220 entreprises qui se sont implantées en Suisse en 2020 sont 23 (-9%) de moins que l’année précédente, le total de 1168 nouveaux emplois au cours de la première année d’activité dépasse de 119 (+11%) le résultat des implantations en 2019.

Avec un total de 3583 nouveaux emplois prévus pour les trois prochaines années, le niveau de l’année précédente (2970) a également été dépassé (+21%).

Technologies d’avenir

À l’image de 2019, la plupart des entreprises venues s’implanter en Suisse sont actives dans les secteurs des technologies de l’information et de la communication ou des sciences du vivant. La majeure partie des sociétés concernées proviennent de France, des États-Unis et de Chine.

La stratégie actuelle 2020-2023 de la promotion économique met un accent particulier sur les technologies d’avenir et s’adresse aux entreprises innovantes et à forte valeur ajoutée. L’objectif est de contribuer à la prospérité du pays en attirant de telles entreprises. Grâce à leur savoir-faire innovant, ces entreprises contribuent à une valeur ajoutée locale pour l’économie et la société, estime la CDEP.

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But in fact, as recently released secret service documents show, this potentially dangerous trio under covert surveillance were actually female poets. And what’s more, there were just two of them: lesbian lovers Valentine Ackland and Sylvia Townsend Warner.

A new biography of Ackland, out next month, is to reveal the level of secret service confusion about this unconventional pair of writers at the beginning of the long period during which they were both objects of state scrutiny. All their correspondence was stopped and read by MI5 officers without their knowledge, and Ackland’s later attempts to enlist for significant war work were blocked.

“There are all these hand-copied versions of their letters, which must have been made in longhand by bureaucrats sitting around in tweed jackets, as I imagine it,” said the biographer Frances Bingham, author of the first major study of the cross-dressing poet and activist. Her book Valentine Ackland, A Transgressive Life will be published on 20 May by Handheld Press to mark 115 years since Ackland’s birth.

“I researched this part of the couple’s lives in the Public Record Office at Kew and I could see the government had searched in vain for some definite evidence against them,” said Bingham this weekend.

Frances Bingham’s biography is published on 20 May 2021, 115 years to the day since Ackland was born.

“The authorities first heard about Ackland in 1935 when she wrote to the British Communist party. She offered them the use of her car and was prepared to become a driver. MI5 presumed she was a man and wrote to their local police force saying they should check up on them.”

Ackland, born Mary Kathleen in London in 1906 and known as Molly in her youth, had been taught to drive and to shoot by her father, who had no sons. Her lover, Townsend Warner, was a writer who is still acclaimed for her novels and short stories, including a debut bestseller, Lolly Willowes. The couple lived together in intermittent harmony for 30 years until Ackland’s death in 1969.

“MI5 told the police they wanted to know if there was anything ‘abnormal’ about Ackland,” said Bingham, who has previously edited a collection of Ackland’s poetry. “While this question and the mistakes about their gender, including the fact they initially thought Townsend Warner was two people, did make me laugh at first, a moment later it struck a chill through me. It was clear that being homosexual and being a threat to society were one and the same thing in their minds. These people were communists and they were queer, and both of these things were very bad.”

At the age of 19, Ackland had married a man, Richard Turpin. But the union was a mistake from the first. And so, in 1925, already sporting a boyish Eton crop and men’s clothes, the reluctant wife moved down to the Dorset village of Chaldon to escape. She met Townsend Warner, 12 years her senior, soon afterwards.

Valentine (on the right, dressed in men’s clothes) and Sylvia Townsend Warner (left, wearing glasses). Photograph: Warner-Ackland Estate

In 1934 the writers jointly published a sensational collection of erotic love poems, Whether a Dove or Seagull. The verses appeared anonymously, blurring the identities of the poets.

That year they also both joined the Communist party.

Ackland, who had begun to experiment with a simpler writing style, started to be widely published in the leftwing press. Together, the couple volunteered for the British Red Cross in Barcelona during the Spanish civil war, where they were delegates to an anti-fascist writers’ conference in Madrid and visited the front lines at Guadalajara. Ackland’s articles (from “our worker correspondent”) captured the idealism and chaos of republican Spain, but she also wrote what Bingham describes as “melancholy poems” that lamented the victory of fascism.

After Spain, the couple moved inland in Dorset, to a riverside house in Frome Vauchurch, where they stayed for the rest of their lives. As the war against Germany played out, Ackland felt imprisoned in the west country, with repeated applications to use her driving skills for the allied campaign mysteriously turned down.

“She was a communist in the sense that she was always on the side of the underdog,” said Bingham. “Although she was from a wealthy background, she felt an outsider. She was very anti-Nazi, but despite the fact she was the right age, she didn’t get an interesting wartime job.

“This was because, without her knowledge, she was blacklisted. All she could get was minor clerical work, and she was eventually moved over to civil defence, and even there her superiors were warned not to let her see or overhear anything. She had no idea.”

Ackland’s poem Teaching to Shoot, from this period, describes the disturbing process of instructing Townsend Warner how to use a gun, in expectation of a Nazi invasion.

Ackland died of cancer at 63. Townsend Warner survived the woman she called “my light and my gravity” by almost nine years and spent much of that time editing a posthumous collection of Ackland’s poetry, The Nature of the Moment, and preparing their letters for publication.

“I see Ackland as a pioneer forerunner of modern lesbian writing and I want to celebrate her determination to live as herself,” said Bingham, who runs Potters’ Yard Arts in London with her partner, Liz Mathews. “I find her story very inspiring.”

Whether it be trade in chocolate bars, electric bicycles or malt whisky distilled in Scotland, the reality for exporters, importers and customers infuriated by orders being delayed is mostly negative.

“Three months on, two out of three companies experience a negative impact of Brexit. They are struggling with increased costs [71%], red tape [63%] and delayed shipments [59%],” said Lyne Biewinga, executive director of membership at the Netherlands British Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) which conducted the survey among its members. “These problems have led to sleepless nights for many businesses.”

Chacun s’accorde à parler d’un loupé, d’une bourde diplomatique, d’une erreur de la Turquie avec ce traitement humiliant réservé à U.Von der Leyen, présidente de la Commission européenne, remisée par le dictateur islamiste au rang de potiche en train d’épousseter le canapé, déjà bien heureuse qu’on ne lui demande pas d’aller préparer des pâtisseries à la cuisine, pendant que les messieurs parlent d’on ne sait quoi en étalant leurs jambes bien relâchés du slip et le visage non masqué.
Cette image est en fait le parfait reflet de la réalité, elle est donc le contraire d’un loupé. Elle manifeste tout ce qui est haissable et méprisable dans la situation actuelle :
La veulerie de l’Union européenne face à l’islam politique et à la brutalité turque.
L’absence de professionnalisme dans la préparation protocolaire de cette rencontre de la part des Européens.
La goujaterie pathétique et vulgaire de Charles Michel, président du Conseil européen, sorte d’inutile grande saucisse technocratique incapable de faire fonctionner ses quelques neurones ou son éducation afin de se lever et céder son fauteuil à la présidente.
La soumission également d’Ursula Von der Leyen qui, constatant la situation, aurait dû quitter les lieux sur le champ ou se lever et exiger qu’on modifie la configuration de la rencontre.
Bref, tout ceci est parfaitement représentatif de la situation réelle ainsi que, accessoirement, de la conception des femmes en territoire islamiste.
Cette visite ressemblait déjà à quelque reptation larvaire, elle a trouvé dans cette mise en scène sa parfaite incarnation.
L’Union européenne, qui subit et accepte les chantages du tyran islamiste, entre autres nullités, ne mérite rien de mieux.

It came as police used water cannon against nationalist youths in west Belfast, as unrest stirred again on the streets on Thursday evening, with reports that officers later warned they could use “impact rounds” – also known as plastic bullets.

In a statement, the US president’s press secretary, Jen Psaki, said: “We are concerned by the violence in Northern Ireland” and that Biden remained “steadfast” in his support for a “secure and prosperous Northern Ireland in which all communities have a voice and enjoy the gains of the hard-won peace”.

She spoke as the Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, called on political leaders across the spectrum to tone down their language to ease tensions.

Biden, who has Irish roots, has repeatedly expressed support for the peace process and last year waded into a row over UK plans to override parts of the Brexit deal, warning Boris Johnson that any trade deal was “contingent upon respect for the [peace] agreement and preventing the return of a hard border”.

Police said as many as 600 people had been involved in disturbances in Belfast on Wednesday, when a bus was petrol-bombed, plastic bullets were fired and missiles were hurled over a “peace wall”.

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Protesters in Belfast hijack bus and set it on fire – video

With parts of Belfast scarred and a political crisis brewing, the Northern Ireland assembly united in its condemnation of the rioting and agreed a motion calling for an end to the “deplorable” violence and support for the rule of law.

Boris Johnson and the Irish prime minister, Micheál Martin, spoke by phone on Thursday, called for calm, and agreed that “the way forward is through dialogue and working the institutions of the Good Friday agreement”.

Northern Ireland was plunged into crisis after violence escalated at the intersection between loyalist and nationalist communities in the Shankill and Springfield areas.

Police said rioters had thrown petrol bombs, bottles, masonry and fireworks, and a Belfast Telegraph photographer was attacked. Police fired six plastic bullets known as attenuating energy projectiles (AEPs) on Wednesday night. Eight officers were injured in the unrest and two men aged 28 and 18 were arrested on suspicion of riotous behaviour.

Riot police gather at the Springfield Road/Lanark Way intersection Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

The Police Service of Northern Ireland assistant chief constable Jonathan Roberts said Wednesday’s mayhem “was at a scale we have not seen in recent years” and it was lucky that no one had been seriously hurt or killed.

Stones and fireworks were thrown at police by gangs of youths gathered on the nationalist Springfield Road on Thursday evening, close to where Wednesday night’s riots took place. Police deployed water cannon after protesters failed to disperse. Later in the evening, there were reports that police warned crowds “impact rounds will be fired”. The plastic bullets are not used as a means of crowd control in any part of the UK apart from Northern Ireland, and their use has been condemned by human rights groups.

Lewis was due to hold virtual meetings with leaders of all five parties in the Northern Ireland executive, including the Democratic Unionist party, Sinn Féin and the Alliance party, on Friday morning.

After touching down in Belfast, he said he had encouraged politicians to “think very carefully” about the language they used. He added: “Not just unionists, but if you look at the tweets and messages from politicians from all parties, they have put out messages that can be interpreted in a particular way as having a bit of spite to them.

“I don’t think there is any place for that. I have spoken to people across parties about that.”

He named no names, but public positions have become polarised over both the Brexit protocols for Northern Ireland and recent decision not to prosecute Sinn Féin leaders who attended a funeral in contravention of health restrictions. “I think we all have to be very clear about the fact that what politicians here say matters,” Lewis said.

There had been hopes that tensions could ease on Thursday as the Ulster Political Research Group, which is linked to the paramilitary Ulster Defence Association, called for an end to the violence, saying “street disturbances will not solve our issues”. The Loyalist Communities Council, which represents loyalist paramilitary groups, reportedly met on Thursday afternoon, but failed to reach agreement on a statement condemning the violence.

After calls for calm this week, violence again flared up on the streets of west Belfast on Thursday. Stones and fireworks were thrown at police by gangs of youths gathered on the nationalist Springfield Road, close to where riots took place on Wednesday night.

Those involved were warned by police to “disperse immediately or the water cannon will be used”. However, those present continued to fire missiles at police, and after several warnings, the water cannon was deployed. Some of those present jeered before fleeing as the water jet came closer.

Later in the evening, there were reports that police warned crowds “impact rounds will be fired”. Impact rounds, also known as AEPs or plastic bullets, are not used as a means of crowd control in any part of the UK apart from Northern Ireland, and their use has been condemned by human rights groups. Six plastic bullets were fired by police during Wednesday night’s events.

The justice minister, Naomi Long, issued a fresh call for an end to the violence after what she called “depressing and reckless” scenes on Thursday. She tweeted: “More attacks on police, this time from nationalist youths. Utterly reckless and depressing to see more violence at interface areas tonight.

“My heart goes out to those living in the area who are living with this fear and disturbance. This needs to stop now, before lives are lost.”

Wednesday night’s violence saw clashes along the peace wall that separates the unionist Shankill Road from the nationalist Springfield Road. But Thursday night’s unrest appeared to be confined to nationalists. Groups of community activists were seen attempting to prevent access to the gate of the peace line where clashes took place the previous night.

A heavy police presence was in operation on Thursday night, with water cannon, police dogs and the riot squad in place in a bid to quell another night of unrest. PSNI officers were seen holding riot shields and being pelted with missiles before charging the youths with dogs in order to drive them off.

Earlier, the UK prime minister and Irish premier made a joint appeal for calm after days of unrest in Northern Ireland. Boris Johnson and taoiseach Micheál Martin had spoken over the phone on Thursday about the violent clashes in mainly loyalist areas.

In a statement, the Irish government said the two leaders stressed that violence was unacceptable. “The way forward is through dialogue and working the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement,” the statement said. “[The leaders] agreed that the two governments would continue to stay in contact.”

The Biden administration in the US also appealed for calm in Northern Ireland and voiced its support for the Brexit protocol.

After calls for calm this week, violence again flared up on the streets of west Belfast on Thursday. Stones and fireworks were thrown at police by gangs of youths gathered on the nationalist Springfield Road, close to where riots took place on Wednesday night.

Those involved were warned by police to “disperse immediately or the water cannon will be used”. However, those present continued to fire missiles at police, and after several warnings, the water cannon was deployed. Some of those present jeered before fleeing as the water jet came closer.

Later in the evening, there were reports that police warned crowds “impact rounds will be fired”. Impact rounds, also known as AEPs or plastic bullets, are not used as a means of crowd control in any part of the UK apart from Northern Ireland, and their use has been condemned by human rights groups. Six plastic bullets were fired by police during Wednesday night’s events. 

The justice minister, Naomi Long, issued a fresh call for an end to the violence after what she called “depressing and reckless” scenes on Thursday. She tweeted: “More attacks on police, this time from nationalist youths. Utterly reckless and depressing to see more violence at interface areas tonight.

“My heart goes out to those living in the area who are living with this fear and disturbance. This needs to stop now, before lives are lost.”

Wednesday night’s violence saw clashes along the peace wall that separates the unionist Shankill Road from the nationalist Springfield Road. But Thursday night’s unrest appeared to be confined to nationalists. Groups of community activists were seen attempting to prevent access to the gate of the peace line where clashes took place the previous night.

A heavy police presence was in operation on Thursday night, with water cannon, police dogs and the riot squad in place in a bid to quell another night of unrest. PSNI officers were seen holding riot shields and being pelted with missiles before charging the youths with dogs in order to drive them off.

Earlier, the UK prime minister and Irish premier made a joint appeal for calm after days of unrest in Northern Ireland. Boris Johnson and taoiseach Micheál Martin had spoken over the phone on Thursday about the violent clashes in mainly loyalist areas.

In a statement, the Irish government said the two leaders stressed that violence was unacceptable. “The way forward is through dialogue and working the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement,” the statement said. “[The leaders] agreed that the two governments would continue to stay in contact.”

The Biden administration in the US also appealed for calm in Northern Ireland and voiced its support for the Brexit protocol.

Beaucoup plus que ce n’est le cas à droite, les questions religieuses, identitaires et de genre divisent profondément la gauche d’aujourd’hui. Objets de discorde, elles ravivent des plaies malignes, mais non incurables au sein d’une famille politique qui, sans succomber à la gravité des maux qu’elle subit, n’est toutefois pas en mesure d’apporter le moindre remède pour pallier la crise idéologique qu’elle traverse. Première victime de cette forme nouvelle de délitement intellectuel, son école universaliste perd de plus en plus pied et, acculée comme jamais, abandonne les positions qu’elle avait naguère acquises de haute lutte.

Scindée entre son ancrage laïc à la française et son multiculturalisme à l’américaine, la gauche européenne semble désormais privilégier la seconde. À l’image de la votation sur l’interdiction de la burqa, la Suisse ne fait pas exception à la règle : le PS et les Verts ont choisi leur camp et voteront non. Ralliés aux positions d’une politique qui feint d’ignorer le fossé qui existe entre ces deux approches, ces partis épousent ipso facto l’avis de ceux qui, jusque dans certains milieux universitaires, interprètent le port du voile intégral comme une liberté accordée aux femmes musulmanes.

À faire sursauter d’émoi et de rage des milliers de féministes, citoyennes et citoyens hostiles à toute forme d’enfermement, ne serait-ce que celle symbolisée par un vêtement, l’attitude de la gauche suisse est très largement influencée par l’école germanique de l’islam. Entre stéréotypes bienveillants, tolérance excessive à tolérer les intolérants et une naïveté apparente, bien que non dénuée d’intérêts inavoués, celle-ci n’a pour autre objet que de relativiser la violence physique, terroriste et morale exercée à l’encontre des chrétiens, juifs, non-croyants et autres mécréants. À ne voir dans les attentats islamistes que le résultat d’une radicalisation de petits délinquants ou à déclarer, à l’exemple du professeur Perry Schmidt-Leukel de l’Université de Münster, que l’assassinat du père Hamel en 2016 à Saint-Étienne- du-Rouvray, ne serait guidé par aucune motivation religieuse, car « dans une guerre de religions, il ne peut y avoir que des attaques guerrières provenant des deux côtes » (sic !), c’est là non seulement faire injure aux victimes de Daesh, mais aussi atteindre une limite éthique, historique et humainement irresponsable qu’aucune gauche, digne de son nom, n’est pas en droit de franchir.

Aujourd’hui, cette même gauche est prise à son propre piège, faute de ne pas avoir su redonner au mot libération le sens qu’elle lui avait naguère attribué. Alors que dans de nombreux de pays de confession musulmane, beaucoup de femmes dénoncent les traditions et les contraintes sexuelles qui les oppriment, les partis occidentaux, appelés à défendre leurs droits, sombrent dans une nouvelle forme de déni qui les déshonore. Pire encore, ils laissent le champ libre à l’extrême droite qui, pour des motifs exclusivement xénophobes, a réussi à faire de la lutte anti-islamiste son fonds de commerce. Tel est le cas en Suisse, où le « le comité d’Egerkingen » a toutes les chances d’inscrire une nouvelle victoire à son palmarès grâce à son initiative antiburqa et à servir, au-delà des frontières de la Confédération, d’aiguillon et de modèle pour d’autres organisations partageant ces mêmes convictions.

Presque nulle part en Europe, la gauche n’a su prendre la dimension de ce danger politique. Face à des classes sociales désabusées et à des sympathisants en perte de repères idéologiques et philosophiques, elle offre un espace à la droite, et plus encore à la droite extrême.  Ce constat a été établi depuis plusieurs années par des élus de terrain ou autres dirigeants politiques qui, en France, comme André Gérin, en sa qualité de député-maire communiste de Vénissieux, ville de la banlieue lyonnaise, avait présidé de 2009 à 2010 « la mission d’information parlementaire sur la pratique du port du voile intégral sur le territoire national ». Ainsi, des partis, comme le Rassemblement national, la Ligue, l’AFD ou l’UDC se sont engouffrés dans une brèche et profitent aujourd’hui du silence de leurs adversaires pour récolter les fruits de leur propagande haineuse. Il ne suffit pas de le déplorer, mais également d’en rechercher les causes et de s’interroger sur la faillite d’une gauche européenne, en l’occurrence suisse, qui, à l’exemple de la votation du 7 mars prochain sur la burqa, dévoile ainsi ses profondes divisions au grand jour.