A "Bill 101" in Switzerland? Language planning in the canton of Jura

Abstract

Although multilingual, Switzerland has rarely been seen as a state with a strong tradition of planning; quite the opposite. This article will focus on one region of French-speaking Switzerland, the canton of Jura, a region formerly attached to the canton of Bern and which became the 23rd Swiss canton in 1979. In the 1960s and 1970s, the Jura autonomist movement based part of its argumentation for the creation of a new state within the Swiss confederation on ideologies. It is of great interest to note that, once the new canton had been constituted, questions of planning were raised, mostly by actors who had been influential in the autonomist movement. First, the writing of the canton's new constitution gave rise to a series of questions about language. Jura's constitution is the first constitution of a monolingual canton dealing with issues. Moreover, a motion was passed at the Parliament in 1985 and is the base for a new law about the use of the French language that h...