Restoration Day

The Restoration of the Republic remembers December 31, 1813, when Geneva regained independence after fifteen years of French annexation during the Napoleonic period. The city-state later joined the Swiss Confederation in 1815, but the restoration remains a powerful marker of Geneva’s own political identity.

Geneva includes the date in its official public-holiday calendar alongside New Year, Easter and Geneva Fast. It is a particularly clear example of a regional holiday that tells a local constitutional story: people elsewhere in Switzerland may prepare for New Year’s Eve as usual, while Geneva also marks a civic anniversary.

Swiss public-holiday law is deliberately decentralised. The Federal Constitution establishes August 1 as the one holiday treated like a Sunday throughout Switzerland; cantons may designate up to eight additional holidays with equivalent labour-law effect, and can recognise further dates under cantonal rules. Coverage can therefore differ by canton and sometimes municipality. Employees who work across cantonal borders generally follow the holiday law at their place of work, while contracts and collective agreements govern pay or time-off details not fixed by public law.