Switzerland’s national pride dealt heavy blow by the merger of its banking titans

The statue of Alfred Escher, modern Switzerland’s founding father, watches over the Paradeplatz square in Zurich. Escher founded Credit Suisse in 1856, but commentators suggest its takeover by rival UBS is an ominous sign for the republic. Photograph: imageBROKER/Alamy

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.