A family who have lived in Switzerland for over a decade have been denied citizenship of the country - partly due to their tendency to wear tracksuit bottoms around town.
The Halili family originally came from Kosovo and were granted residency in the Swiss village of Bubendorf in Basel-County in 2006, on the back of a local campaign of support.
However, their applications for citizenship were denied by the village committee on the basis the family “were not Swiss enough”, according to the Local.
The local council reportedly complained the parents and their children often wore tracksuit bottoms rather than jeans while walking around the village, and declined to greet local people on their morning commute.
All four members of the family speak German and proved their knowledge of local customs, the two formal prerequisites required to obtain citizenship of the region.
Florian Pariset, the head of the Swiss nationalisation board, told Le Matin: “When I was preparing to obtain citizenship, I was more worried about the history of William Tell than about my clothes.
“At no moment did I think ‘I hope no one sees me in jogging bottoms’.”
The Halili family became popular figures in the local community 11 years ago when the Swiss authorities were in the process of judging whether to deport them back to Kosovo.
They often appeared at public events, but the tide of sentiment seems to have turned against them a decade later.
It is very unusual for residency applications in Basel-County to be rejected outright, according to local reports.
