‘A monster is born’, say local press, as Credit Suisse takeover by UBS creates bank twice the size of the Swiss economy
Outside Zurich central station, monsters snap at the feet of modern Switzerland’s founding father. The towering statue of the 19th-century industrialist Alfred Escher used to symbolise Switzerland’s calm and stability amid geopolitical storms: his back to the railway whose expansion he masterminded, his face turned to Paradeplatz square and the bank he created to finance his ventures.
But after days of turmoil that upended old certainties about the Alpine republic, it is the two snarling dragon gargoyles, restrained by chains, that ominously sum up the state of the nation.
