The Evian Country in the heart of Chablais

Chablais is a former province of the Duchy of Savoy, having Thonon-les-Bains as its historic capital. Today, this region is divided into three territories, the Chablais Savoyard, the Chablais Valaisan and the Chablais Vaudois, and is split between two countries: France (the Haute-Savoie department) and Switzerland (the cantons of Valais and Vaud).

In the beginning...

Some 22,000 years ago, the Chablais region was covered by a spur of ice with an average thickness of 1,000 metres. Between 17,000 and 10,000 BC, the glacier slowly retreated, with the freed lands being subsequently colonized by nomadic hunters. Around 5,000 BC, villages developed on the initiative of shepherd-farmers from Italy. Chablais eventually became a communication route.

The 11th century

Chablais encompassed the entire region stretching out from either side of the Rhône River, between Evian and Vevey and called the "summit" or "head of the lake". The region had Saint-Maurice d'Agaune as its capital and gathered together 30 towns. During the 11th century, Chablais became a possession of the House of Savoy. Amadeus III added to this territory, known as "Old Chablais", the region stretching from Thonon to Douvaine, which became known as "New Chablais". The princes of the House of Savoy spent time at those sites requiring their presence, in particular, at Chillon Castle in the Vaud and Ripaille Castle near Thonon.

The Bernese invasion of 1536

Bern declared war on the Duke of Savoy and its army led by Naégali crossed the Vaud, meeting with little resistance. Naégali occupied all of New Chablais as far as Thonon, as well as Geneva, where he was welcomed as a liberator. The towns of Saint-Gingolph and Evian and the communities of the valleys of Abondance, Vacheresse and Bonnevaux, followed by those of Saint-Jean-d'Aulps and Biot very quickly rallied to the new authorities. In 1553, Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy desired to regain the states that had been lost by his father. He therefore reclaimed the heritage of his ancestors in the region of Lake Léman, but his former subjects in the canton of Vaud no longer wished to become Savoyard or Catholic.

In 1564, a compromise was found and on 30 October 1564, the Treaty of Lausanne was signed. Bern returned western Chablais (or the bailiwick of Thonon), along with the region of Gex and Gaillard, but it kept its Vaud possessions. A treaty, ratified in Sion on 23 March 1569 and in Chambéry on 4 April, definitively fixed the border between the two states at the Morge stream in Saint-Gingolph. The Valais returned the towns of Evian and Saint-Jean d'Aulps to the Duke of Savoy, but kept control of Monthey.

Evian and the development of thermal spas

Evian initially served as a stopover for pilgrims making their way to the abbey of Saint-Maurice, in particular, thanks to its port. The town also served as a residence of the Dukes of Savoy. Evian would grow between the 11th and 14th centuries, before re-entering a long period of relative inactivity followed by a new golden age during the 19th and 20th centuries, thanks to the development of balneology.

The discovery of Evian's mineral water dates back to 1790, when, during a walk, a nobleman from Auvergne, the Count of Laizer, refreshed himself at the Fountain of Sainte Catherine on the estate of one Monsieur Cachat. Finding this water healthy, "light and freely flowing", this man, who suffered from pain in his liver and kidneys and had begun to drink regularly from the fountain during his walks, began to notice a marked improvement in his health. He afterwards praised the "miraculous" qualities of this water, which began to be prescribed by doctors.

This immediate success led Monsieur Cachat to close off the spring and begin selling its water. The first "Evian Baths" appeared in 1824. The creation of the first mineral-water company in 1829 also marked the beginning of the resort's expansion, with the construction of thermal baths, the Casino, luxury hotels, the funicular and the theatre. This development continued up until the Second World War, during which period water cures slowly fell out of fashion.

The second half of the 20th century to the present day

In the 1960s, Evian became the "Sleeping Beauty". Despite the economic success of Evian Mineral Waters Ltd, whose production continued to expand, the thermal resort town lost its dynamism and attracted fewer and fewer visitors. In the second half of the 20th century, French spas sank into a difficult period, despite the covering of water cures by France's social security system, set up in 1945. France was in the throes of decolonization and the Evian Country lost its clientele of exotic, wealthy expatriates attracted to the shores of Lake Léman to recharge their batteries.

In this context, Camille Blanc, the mayor of Evian, desirous to claim a place for his town in the history books, accepted to host the conference to put an end to the war in Algeria. He would be killed on 31 March 1961 in a terrorist attack carried out by the OAS ("Secret Armed Organization"), an extremist group of French nationalists who sought to sabotage the peace negotiations. Following an eventful year of new developments and negotiations, the Evian Accords were finally signed on 18 March 1962, putting an end to eight years of war.

40 years later, in June 2003, Evian was once again at the centre of attention when it hosted the G8 Summit.