La Sasson, Bronze statue in Chambéry, France

La Sasson is a bronze allegory of a Savoyard woman with heavy features, wearing a wide-skirted dress and giant's shoes, holding a flag upright against her chest. The lost-wax casting stands 5 m to the top of the flag, or 4 m to the head, on a 2.6 m stone base from Curienne in the Bauges massif. A plaster model (92 cm high, inv. M 1104) is held at the Musée des beaux-arts de Chambéry.

La Sasson was inaugurated on 4 September 1892 by President Sadi Carnot, commemorating the centenary of Savoie's first attachment to France in November 1792. On 22 April 1942 the bronze was unbolted and sent away to be melted down under the non-ferrous metal requisition; it was found decapitated near Hamburg and returned to Chambéry on 13 April 1950. Restored, it was inaugurated again on 1 June 1982.

Chambery residents nicknamed the statue La Sasson, Savoyard for a rather simple, overgrown girl, mocking her heavy build; the name derives from Saçon, a dialect diminutive of Francoise. Conservative opponents of the 1892 Republicans are said to have coined it. Today the statue serves as a rallying point for popular and student gatherings.

La Sasson stands on a square in central Chambéry, on a stone pedestal 2.6 m high cut from rock of the Bauges massif at Curienne; the bronze reaches 5 m to the top of the flag. The statue is a rallying point for popular and student gatherings, so the square can be crowded during events.

The statue suffered damage during wartime and lost its head, a fate that marked it with an unusual history. It was carefully reconstructed later with a new head created to complete the restoration.