^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

Mouvement Romand (Switzerland)

Discription and meaning of the flag
1992 variation

See also:

Discription and meaning of the flag

image by António Martins

Note that this flag is not the flag of the French-speaking part of Switzerland (Romandie), but of the freedom fighters of the Mouvement Romand. It is based on the French Tricolour. It is vertically blue-white-red with three white stars vertically on the blue field, two inverted colours on the blue-white border and one blue star on the white field. There is a small Swiss cross on the red field.
Harald Müller, 21 December 1995 and Pascal Vagnat, 16 July 1996

The branches of the Swiss cross in the upper right corner identical to those of the cross present on the flag of Neuchâtel. The six stars (taken from the flag of Valais) represent the six French speaking Cantons of Fribourg, Genève, Jura, Neuchâtel, Vaud and Valais, although two of them are bilingual (Fribourg and Valais). There's no star to represent the French speaking part of Canton of Berne (Moutier area) which claim an attachment to the Canton of Jura.
Pascal Gross, 1 May 1998

This flag is mostly seen in the Jura as almost half of the members of the Mouvement Romand which fights for a sovereign Romandie area.
António Martins, 18 February 1998

1992 variation

image by António Martins

The Swiss cross in the upper fly canton has been removed after the negative national vote concerning Europe in December, 1992.
António Martins, 18 February 1998

[This article from the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (German) reports about the development of the common consciousness of the francophone cantons as "Suisse romande" or "Romandie", and also says something about the flag on this page.
The term "Romandie" never was very popular, for many it has a separatist connotation, unlike "Suisse romande" (Ironically "Romandie" has gained some popularity in German speaking Switzerland, because the traditional terms welsch and Welschland are increasingly viewed as derogatory). Likewise the flag of the Mouvement Romand never caught on and has disappeared almost completely in public. During the recent years the cooperation between the francophone cantons has increased in several areas, but without the aim for changing the territorial borders. (The article as PDF)]