In 2009, during a visit to Italy, Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi called for Switzerland to be wiped off the map and divided up among its neighbors (Germany, France, and Italy). His proposal was a bizarre twist in an ongoing diplomatic spat after Swiss authorities briefly detained Gaddafi's son in 2008.

According to Gaddafi, Switzerland was a "mafia state" and should be dismantled, with German-speaking regions going to Germany, French-speaking areas to France, and the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino handed to Italy. Unsurprisingly, nobody took the idea seriously.