Foreign workers
On 16 December 2009 Le Matin (LM) published the picture above accompanying a story about the announcement of an increased unemployment rate for the coming year (see the picture in the context of the story here).
At the centre of the image there is an officer of the Swiss Border Police, recognizable by the insignia on his arm, carrying a couple of traffic cones. Coming towards the viewer there are long queues of cars, whose plates — when visible — are French. The ground is wet and the gloves of the officer suggest a cold weather. The cars have their lights on, thus the scene takes place early in the morning or late in the afternoon. Trucks drive in the background, where there are also flags. The photo was taken at one of the Swiss border check points after the country joined the European Schengen area [1].
At the iconic level, the image is a mere border crossing scene; the cars could be carrying tourists to do Christmas shopping. However, anchored by the surrounding textual elements (headline, extended sub-headline and text boxes and sidebar) it signifies the free movement of labour and its debated impact on the home labour market in terms of unemployment. “Unemployment: Are the EU workers responsible?” asks the headline. The extended sub-headline links “free movement [of labour]” with the prospect of an increased unemployment rate the following year and the assertion of the right-wing party UDC, which puts the blame for it on European Union workers, but leaves the verdict out: “The link is not that clear.” However, the sidebar embedded in the picture defines the free movement [of labour] as a “flood” (afflux) [2]. And the chart of unemployment rates by nationality highlighted over a black background leaves little doubt about what the answer to the question posed by the headline could be.
Considering this signified as signifier of a second order we enter the level of the Barthesian myth: Switzerland awash in a tide of European Union workers entering the country to worsen its unemployment rate. The Border Police officer, extraordinarily lonely — as they usually work in pairs — in the cold and under the rain looks powerless in his Schengen attire to contain the anonymous and seemingly endless flood that comes from abroad [3]. The only Swiss in the picture, the officer can at best expect to channel the flood with feeble, almost pathetic means. What good can ordinary traffic cones do when one is facing a flood?
The only dissonant element in the picture — the trucks, which like the cars are entering the country, but bringing into it goods and perhaps much needed raw materials — is almost entirely hidden by the text box that functions as the photo caption.
Nowhere in the story is to be found any further reference to the UDC and its blaming European Union workers for the increase of Swiss unemployment, so its placement in the extended sub-headline becomes even more significant: it plays a crucial role in framing the issue.
Inserted in the picture, an invitation encourages readers to give feedback on LM’s website: “Tell us: Should our borders be closed?”
NOTES
- Before entering the Schengen area at the end of 2008, the Swiss Border Police had green uniforms.
- Although recognizing that it obeys to a home-grown demand. Interestingly, the signified are EU workers and not Frontaliers, who are most likely those who appear in the photo.
- The drivers’ faces are not visible while the flags in the background suggest their varied origin.
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