ABSTRACT
Switzerland has always been linked in one way or another with the phenomenon of migration. Today, with the exception of Luxembourg, Switzerland is the European country with the highest proportion of foreign inhabitants, some 16 per cent of the resident population. Swiss policy does not particularly favour the acquisition of citizenship, thus many of these are second or third generation immigrants to live in the country. Although 180 different countr ies are represented, all but 12 per cent of foreign residents are from other European countries, about two-fifths being Italians who arrived in a wave of labour migration in the 1960s and 1970s.
