This chapter situates Switzerland as both a celebrated and a contested model of multilingual governance. It introduces the paradox at the center of the book: multilingualism is formally protected through constitutional principles and political discourse, yet lived realities reveal persistent hierarchies, uneven participation, and regionally bounded monolingual practices. The chapter frames the Swiss case as a productive perspective for examining broader European tensions between symbolic pluralism and practical inequality, particularly in the context of migration, globalization, and the rise of English as a global lingua franca. It outlines why Switzerland is not an exceptional outlier but a revealing instance of how multilingualism is governed, negotiated, and experienced in a late-modern democracy. The chapter introduces the theoretical frameworks that guide the analysis, including Hornberger, Spolsky, Shohamy, Critical Language Policy, and Stroud and Heugh’s concept of linguistic citizenship, and argues that understanding Swiss multilingualism requires examining both top-down structures and bottom-up practices. It concludes by describing the book’s structure and key questions, positioning the Swiss case as a way to rethink the links among language, power, and belonging.