Anti-nuclear movement in Switzerland

Protests started in the late 1960s, principally against a planned nuclear power plant in Kaiseraugst, a small village not far from the city of Basel.

With the exception of this ten-year moratorium, the Swiss public has rejected every referendum to ban nuclear energy since the 1970s (for instance in 1984 and 2003).

At present, spent nuclear material is "kept in temporary aboveground facilities while politicians and communities wrangle about where to bury it.

"[3] In May 2011, following the Fukushima nuclear disaster, some 20,000 people turned out for Switzerland's largest anti-nuclear power demonstration in 25 years.

Demonstrators marched peacefully near the Beznau Nuclear Power Plant, the oldest in Switzerland, which started operating in 1969.