Hi Anthony,
The applicable rules are the law and the ordinance on the road circulation.

In a nutshell, the pedestrians are obliged to use the sidewelk where it exists:

Loi fédérale sur la circulation routière

Art.49

Piétons

1 Les piétons utiliseront le trottoir. A défaut de trottoir, ils longeront le bord de la chaussée [...]

Now, the drivers need also to adept their manner of driving to the circumstances (Art. 32, to some extent 26 of the Law). There might have been some fault of the driver in what happend, but you clearly violated the Art. 49 and were the main (depending on the circumstances: the sole) faulty party.

Best,
PAwel

Thank you for your reply,  and Anthony I hope that you are ok...?

Hope you join us for running, the Geneva Runners clan .

Take care and have a great start to the new week.

Thanks everyone for the replies, and yes, I'm fine, minor stuff really.  But more frustratingly, when something like this happens and you're standing the road with someone screaming in your face about calling the police, it would have been useful to actually know what the laws are on this, so all of this information helps.    

I would disagree here. Unless you made a sudden movement, it is still the responsibility of the driver (in the end the responsibility falls on the person who could end up killing the other). Despite the law being slightly less balanced. Basically there should be a buffer anyway, between the car, the curb and anything in the road.

Unless you are driving a hummer, there is plenty of space for everyone.

To put it into context, if it were a cyclist, and they had encroached on the half a metre or so that you have on the side of the road, they would be in serious trouble.

On a side note, drivers in this city have to be the worst I have ever encountered, and that takes into account living in London. So I wouldn't be too quick to fold. It might even be a case of showing how wide the road was, and how much space they had on the other side of the car.

I turn, I disagree with Farzam :)

The law says that the road is for the cars and other vehicles, the pavement (if it's there) for the pedestrians, unless you cross the road in an authorised place etc.

"Responsability falls on the person who could end up killing the other" - every user of the road who does not respect the rules, thereby putting other users in a position where they do not know what to expect next, is a danger. How many drivers died because they tried to avoid hitting a pedestrian? Who kills whom?

"There is plenty of space for everyone" - yes, everyone allowed to use the road. The pedestrian is not allowed to use the road unless there is no pavement (plus other exceptions like notified and authorised running competitions etc).

Again, the driver needs to be attentive as the use of a vehicle is a danger in itself, but this does not take the main responsibility off the person who is in breach of the law. The exact share of liability will be judged on the circumstances of a particular case.

Haha touché Krul

I never said all responsibility :) , but the driver is the person in the main position here. It doesnt matter about whether someone was tapdancing across the street, a fundamental part of driving is that you have to hyper aware and assume that people will do crazy things. If you were close enough to clip a runner, you were not be cautious.

And did you seriously try to claim there is any kind of parity between people killed by cars, and people in cars killed due to avoiding pedestrians?? 

Also the rules about crossing at authorised points is one that rarely wins over. I know of 2 people who were hit on crossings, and nothing happened to the drivers (or certainly not what you would expect - they recieved a slap on the wrist). One of the people, almost never walked again, though that was 15 years ago. Obviously anecdotal, but some of the things I have seen here... pff no logic.

For example, by law, you cannot park within a certain distance of certain things (end of a road / junction etc), or in certain places (bike lanes, yellow cross boxes etc), now tell me, is this rule enforced?

"On a side note, drivers in this city have to be the worst I have ever encountered, and that takes into account living in London. So I wouldn't be too quick to fold. It might even be a case of showing how wide the road was, and how much space they had on the other side of the car."

Agreed. Swiss rules don't seem to apply to Geneva. In my street it is impossible to walk on the pavement in the morning as it always blocked by parked cars. Something that would be severely punished everywhere in Switzerland east of Lausanne.

I'm no legal eagle but I'm pretty sure that drivers have a resposibility to avoid crashing into other road users, whether they have a right to be there or not

I agree with Farzam and David

In the best of cases, there is shared fault here. A car driver has to in any case avoid obstacles. Unless the visibility was bad, or you were making unexpected moves, the driver has to take precautions for safety vis-à-vis others. (And even if the visibility is bad, he has to take precautions.)

Article 35 about overtaking states:
"Celui qui dépasse doit avoir particulièrement égard aux autres usagers de la route, notamment à ceux qu'il veut dépasser."

I haven't found any texts about passing pedestrians, but the following, concerning bicyclists, gives the guiding principles, when passing "trafficants doux":

"En réalité, ce qui est essentiel, c'est de savoir si dans les conditions où s'effectuait le dépassement la distance latérale adoptée par rapport au dépassé constituait une marge de sécurité suffisante pour parer aux risques normaux à présumer, selon le cours normal des choses, du comportement effectif et prévisible de ce dépassé. [...] Par rapport aux "cyclistes" : le dépasseur doit prendre en considération le fait que pour conserver son équilibre le cycliste ne peut pas toujours rouler en ligne droite ; [...]. Si le dépasseur roule à 30-40 km/h, une distance de 90 cm est suffisante [Arrêt du tribunal fédéral 1955] ; distance augmentée à 1,30 m des routes par [Arrêt du tribunal fédéral 1960] ; distance de 75 cm jugée insuffisante pour le dépassement par la droite par un train routier [...]"
(http://www.ville-geneve.ch/index.php?id=16358&id_detail=2032)

In this case, the car driver has clearly not kept a safe distance to the overtaken party (you)

You can also take the parallel of a badly parked car. If a parked car protudes into the car lane, one still isn't allowed to run straight into it. Same thing for a pedestrian. You're not allowed to run over a pedestrian, even if he is where he shouldn't.

As a final comment, the car driver should define himself as being very lucky, since he "only" hurt your arm. A small difference in position of both of you, and he could have seriously injured or even killed you.