Grand Council of Geneva – The Wall of the Reformers soon to be classified?

– The Reformers’ wall soon to be classified?

The elected officials ask the Council of State to classify the Wall… and the statue of Michel Servet. The City of Geneva is also asked to better protect these monuments.

Published: 08.04.2022, 6:48 p.m.

The Reformers’ wall in the Parc des Bastions

LUCIEN FORTUNATI

Is Geneva still the Protestant Rome? No, but the shadow cast by the Reformation continues to hang over the city, if only because it houses an imposing monument at the Bastions paying homage to it: the Reformers’ wall. Except that the characters represented are no longer unanimous, which sometimes leads this or that group to attack the statues.

In 2019, an act of vandalism knocked the MCG off its hinges. Deputy François Baertschi tabled a motion calling for the classification of the monument. It also asks for an intervention by the Canton with the City of Geneva so that the site is better protected. In committee, the PS adds to the catalog the statue of Michel Servetus, a talented theologian, deemed a heretic and burned in Geneva during the Reformation. A question of balance this addition, justifies Alberto Velasco (PS). For the partisans, represented by the UDC Marc Falquet, the historical quarrel does not matter: “It is not a question here of agreeing or not with the Reform, but of fighting against vandalism”.