Éric Stauffer

Éric Roger Stauffer (born 24 October 1964) is a Swiss politician, and a cofounder of the Geneva Citizens' Movement (MCG).

Stauffer was born in Caprioli on 24 October 1964, to a Genevan father and an Italian-born mother, and grew up in Homberg, Bern. He married when he was 21, and married his current wife when he was 38. He has two children. His wife was born in Mauritius, and he has Italian and Mauritian as well as Swiss citizenship.

Following his governmental career, Stauffer went into business, but all three of the businesses he was involved in starting went bankrupt: UFIP Union Financière Privée SA in 1997, Erton Assets Management SA in 2002, and Cipka SA in 2003. The company Investraders SA, which hired him in 2002, was ordered to be liquidated by the Federal Banking Commission for illegal conduct and declared bankrupt in 2003. During the investigation, Stauffer was remanded in custody for 21 days. Despite this, Stauffer has said he has "reached the top" at everything he has done.

Currently, Stauffer is a member of the board of the university hospitals of Geneva and of Geneva International Airport.

Stauffer was a member of the Liberal Party in the 1990s, and joined the Democratic Union of the Centre (UDC) in early 2005. After a few weeks, he left, and started a new party called the Mouvement blochérien genevois along with Georges Letellier on 6 June. The party's original name was after the popular Zürich UDC politician Christoph Blocher, but Blocher refused to have his name associated with the party, so it was changed to the current Mouvement citoyens genevois. Stauffer served as a member of the executive board of his party, until elected as party president in February 2008. He was replaced as party president by Roger Golay in April 2012. The MCG claims to be neither right- nor left-wing, although most of its positions are to the right of other Swiss parties. It campaigns on a platform of opposition to the purported political class, and of priority allocation of jobs to Swiss citizens rather than cross-border commuters.

...
Wikipedia