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.

[1] 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.

[2] Nonetheless, the plagues of Basel (1541) and Bern (1565 and 1577) were followed by days of penitence and fasting, asking God for clemency and mercy.

By the beginning of the Helvetic Republic folklore had thoroughly linked Jeûne genevois with the widely remembered St. Bartholomew's Day massacre and fasting in Geneva as the slaughter of whole Protestant families carried on throughout France.

In 1869 Geneva decreed that the holiday was no longer official, but Jeûne genevois was celebrated unofficially until 1965, slowly losing its religious significance.