The Lausanne flashpoint

When a Migros cooperative was founded in Canton Vaud in the autumn of 1945, it too faced fierce resistance. Both traders and the fledgling «Middle Class Movement» used every possible means to prevent the expansion of Migros in their canton.

Despite the later establishment of the Migros Vaud Cooperative, resistance was fierce, taking on dangerous proportions. Not only did the Gazette de Lausanne call Gottlieb Duttweiler «a stinking fly» that «lands on anything that stinks of bankruptcy and decay to suck up its poison», the man also receives anonymous defamatory and hate mail. Shortly before Christmas 1945, members of the newly-formed «Middle Class Movement» dragged a «Gottlieb Puppet» through the city streets to be burned at the Major Davel monument. Just as the Vaudois freedom fighters had sought to free themselves from Bernese domination, they too sought to liberate their people from the threat of Migros tyranny. The cantonal parliament did not simply stand by: it drew up a constitutional amendment that forbids companies from outside the canton to open new branches in Vaud. But it’s a lost cause: in November 1946, voters reject the change to the cantonal constitution. One week later, on Lausanne’s Rue de Mauborget 2, the first Migros shop in canton Vaud opens its doors.

French translation:

"Movement of the middle class '=' Mouvement des Classes moyennes»

"Mouche malodorante qui se pose sur tout ce qui sent la faillite et la Putrefaction pour en tirer son venin": "Cet insecte malfaisant nous guette depuis des années, de Zurich, où il règne au milieu de ses richesses."