Laurent Debrot

In the book “The Little Prince”, there is a man who lights and puts out his lamp every minute. Is it just as absurd for every road in Switzerland to be lit up at night? Yes, says Laurent Debrot from the canton of Neuchâtel. Debrot, a retired organic farmer, campaigned to have the lights switched off in his home municipality of Val-de-Ruz. It took a while for everyone to acquiesce, but street lights in the villages of Val-de-Ruz are now turned off between midnight and 4.45 a.m. This makes Val-de-Ruz the first municipality in Switzerland to remain dark at night. Darkness is good for both animals and humans, returning the night to its natural state. Neuchâtel’s other municipalities have since followed suit. Street lights throughout the canton have been switched off from midnight since 2022. Laurent Debrot, a former Green member of Neuchâtel’s cantonal parliament, backed up his campaign with facts. In 2017, he measured the light intensity at a pedestrian crossing situated in front of the local cantonal driver and vehicle licensing office in Malvilliers. “The crossing is rarely ever used during the day, and the people in the offices opposite clock off by late afternoon anyway,” he said. “You wonder what the point of these street lights was in the first place.”