The downside to the influx is pressure on Switzerland’s enviable standard of living. Flats are now almost impossible to find at any price, traffic jams and crowded trains are blamed on overpopulation, and crime is now a fear in what used to be one of the safest nations in the world. Geneva, the once-staid city of John Calvin, now has sleazy neighbourhoods, where The Sunday Telegraph was offered drugs by a dealer and then a prostitute by a pimp at 7.30 am on a Friday morning, on the way to an appointment at the Hotel Edelweiss.