Schengen is not FoM. Visa isn't an acronym. And CERN workers are on diplomatic permits anyway.
Before bilateral agreements and the freedom of movement, not Schengen which was ratified much later and is completely irrelevant here, you needed a work permit, not a visa (lowercase), which anyway at CERN is the equivalent of a diplomatic permit given to all international and tax-exempt NGOs in Geneva/Switzerland. And of course you lose your CDL permit quickly after your contract expires.
Getting a B permit before FoM would specifically not have been as hard for you as for someone from another continent.
My stay at CERN was temporary, and every single company where I had an interview clearly communicated to me that the paperwork to get a B permit instead of a Swiss national, or a foreigner with existing permit.
The need to switch permit status from the CERN diplomatic one into a B one, killed all conversations.
But lets be pedantic in the meaning of words instead, which I used for folks that never lived in Switzerland, that is what is relevant for the whole discussion about foreigners how experience Switzerland.
Words have a meaning and bringing diplomatic permits to the topic when they follow their own rules and are specifically outside any immigration quota is not particularly helpful.
Yes, there are plenty of us in Suisse Romande, yet not everyone is welcomed, and plenty don't have it easy.
There are plenty of ways of folks land there, and true not everyone behaves the way they should.
But lets leave at this, because the discussion won't lead to any constructive place.