Guy Mettan


Guy Mettan is a Swiss journalist and politician.

Career

Guy Mettan was a member of the Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland before becoming a member of the Swiss People's Party.
As a journalist Mettan started with Tribune de Genève as an intern and was its director and editor-in-chief from 1992 to 1998. 1997 he co-founded the and was executive director until 2019.
In 2001 he was appointed Vice-President of the Swiss-West African Chamber of Commerce. Mettan has been president of the Swiss-Russian Chamber of Commerce since its inception in 2005. From 2006 to 2014 he was President of the Geneva Section of the Red Cross Switzerland. He also served as President of the Grand Council of Geneva and sat for the center there until 2019.
In his 2019 book Europe's Existential Dilemma, Mettan criticises European subordination to the United States as a major factor for stifling the continent. He argues in favour of new institutions for European integration and of using China's challenge to American hegemony as an opportunity to create European sovereignty.
Mettan was awarded the Russian medal of the Order of Friendship in February 2017 by President Vladimir Putin. While parliamentary regulations prohibit elected officials from receiving decorations from foreign governments, the Grand Council of Geneva authorised him to receive the medal on a 36-35 vote.
Mettan's journalistic credibility has been questioned on several occasions. In 2017, Reporters Without Borders criticised Mettan for his pro-Russian militancy and for serving as a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda. Florian Irminger, Secretary General of the Swiss Green Party, also called Mettan an apologist for Putin's government. Following Mettan's support for the Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory in a Die Weltwoche essay in 2022, Swiss magazine Republik referred to the article as a "breathtaking compendium" of Russian propaganda.

Personal life

Mettan is married. In 1994, the family adopted a 3-year-old Russian girl, Oxana, from an orphanage in Suzdal. Later, Russian citizenship was granted to Mettan as a result of the adoption due to a decree by the Yeltsin administration.

Books

  • 2004: Genève, ville de paix: de la Conférence de 1954 sur l'Indochine à la coopération internationale
  • 2010: Guy Mettan, Christophe Büchi, Le dictionnaire impertinent de la Suisse
  • 2014: Guy Mettan, François Bugnion, Jean-François Pitteloud, Serge Nessi, Philippe Bender, Serge Bimpag, 150 ans de passion humanitaire, la Croix-Rouge genevoise de 1864 à 2014, Genève, Slatkine,
  • 2017: Creating Russophobia: From the Great Religious Schism to Anti-Putin Hysteria
  • *2016: Russofobia. Mille anni di diffidenza
  • 2019: Le continent perdu. Plaidoyer pour une Europe démocratique et souveraine,
  • *2021: Europe's Existential Dilemma, Clarity Press