| Publisher: | Edipresse |
| Foundation: | 1826 |
| Language: | French |
| Ceased Publication: | February 1998 |
| Headquarters: | Geneva |
| Publishing Country: | Switzerland |
| Circulation: | 32,000 |
| Circulation Date: | February 1998 |
| Issn: | 1010-2108 |
| Oclc: | 405747055 |
The Journal de Genève was a French-language Swiss newspaper founded in 1826. In 1991, the Gazette de Lausanne was merged into it, after which it was titled the Journal de Genève et Gazette de Lausanne. Following financial difficulties that faced both papers, it was merged in March 1998 with the Le Nouveau Quotidien to form Le Temps.
A different paper, a scientific weekly also called the Journal de Genève, was founded in 1787, published by Jacques Paul, an engineer, until 1792. It ceased publication two years later.
In 1826, James Fazy, Salomon Cougnard, Jean-François Chaponnière, John Petit-Senn and Antoine Gaudy-Lefort, five prominent Swiss liberals, founded the Journal. The paper was initially operated as a weekly paper, designed to criticize a government they perceived as reactionary. In 1832, it was switched to twice weekly publications. The earliest numbers (dated to 1840) gave a count of 1200 in circulation, and in 1850 it became a daily paper.
During the Franco-Prussian war the paper became increasingly popular, as it did during WWI. It eventually became one of the most influential papers in Francophone Switzerland. A supplement to the paper was created in the 1960s, the Samedi littéraire.
Due to the financial issues of the Gazette de Lausanne paper, they began to collaborate in the early 1970s. The Gazette was eventually merged into the Journal completely in 1991 (with the Journal
The Journal continued to face financial troubles (having a circulation of 32,000 copies at the end of its publication), and in February 1998 publication ceased. The next month it was combined with Le Nouveau Quotidien (also struggling financially) by its publisher Edipresse to form Le Temps.[1]
The paper's digitized archives are available on the Le Temps Archives website.[2]