Jeûne genevois in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland

Jeûne genevois (meaning Genevan fast) is a public holiday in the canton of Geneva, Switzerland which occurs on the Thursday following the first Sunday of September. It dates back to the 16th century.

The practice of fasting could be observed in the Swiss cantons as far back as the 15th century. The Diet, an assembly of the representatives of the cantons in place until 1848, organised penance and thanksgiving days. Each canton could decide what form these fasts would take.

The Swiss Federal Diets of 1480 and 1483 talked about national days of fasting as penitence and thanksgiving, but in the end, left these decisions to the cantons. With no federal law, fast days became pilgrimages, processions, litanies and fasts.

In 1522 Huldrych Zwingli, who helped stir Protestant Reformation in Switzerland, said fasting laws were only human notions which had nothing to do with the Holy Writ. Nonetheless, the plagues of Basle (1541) and Bern (1565 and 1577) were followed by days of penitence and fasting, asking God for clemency and mercy.