Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis to pay official visit to Paris

This Paris meeting, which follows on from Cassis's first foreign visit to Rome in November and his visit to Vienna last week, underscores how important Mr Cassis considers Switzerland's neighbouring countries. The meeting between the head of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and France's chief diplomat also builds on the meeting which took place in Paris in July between the president of the Swiss Confederation, Doris Leuthard, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

Mr Cassis's visit will be an opportunity to discuss major bilateral dossiers. The discussions will also cover relations between Switzerland and the European Union and the challenges currently faced by the EU.

The Syria dossier will be the main multilateral topic of the meeting between Mr Cassis and Mr Le Drian. They will also discuss the importance of International Geneva as one of the most important centres of global governance.

France is Switzerland's fourth biggest trading partner, after Germany, the United States and Italy. The volume of trade between the two countries came to approximately CHF 27 billion in 2016. An impressive 200,730 Swiss citizens were living in France at the end of 2016. This means France has the largest community of Swiss citizens abroad.

Further information:

Bilateral relations Switzerland–France

Address for enquiries:

Information FDFA
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CH-3003 Bern
Tel.: +41 58 462 31 53
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E-Mail: info@eda.admin.ch

Publisher:

Federal Department of Foreign Affairs