One hour less sleep, one hour more daylight in the evening. France is switching to summer time this weekend, a controversial change that the European Union has officially proposed to put an end to… still without materializing.
At two o’clock in the morning from Saturday to Sunday, the clocks will advance by 60 minutes: it will be three o’clock and we will therefore sleep “an hour less”, as long as we get up at the same time as usual. On the other hand, we will gain an hour of brightness at the end of the day.
But this time change twice a year (changeover to winter time on the last Sunday in October, to summer time on the last Sunday in March) is highly contested for its effect on biological rhythms. , especially by doctors or parents of children of school age.
Already used in the first half of the 20th century, the time change was reintroduced in France in 1976, in the wake of the oil shocks and justified by energy savings, a still topical theme between conflict in Ukraine and climate change. . However, their importance is highly debated. Ademe had estimated them, in 2014, “real but modest”.
The system was harmonized at European level in 1980. But it has been increasingly contested and the European Commission proposed in 2018 to abolish it from 2019. Finally, the European Parliament voted a postponement to 2021, to be discussed with the EU Council. But the file is still in limbo, the States not agreeing and the Covid-19 crisis having been there.
Harmonize with neighboring countries
In particular, countries must be encouraged to harmonize their choice of legal time, in order to avoid ending up with a patchwork of time zones between neighbours.
In France, an online consultation organized in 2019 by the National Assembly had received more than two million responses, overwhelmingly (83.74%) in favor of the end of the time change. As for the time to stay all year round, summer (in France, UTC + 2) was preferred by 59% of participants.
The current system does not concern overseas territories, which never change time (with the exception of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, which is based on neighboring Canada). Indeed, most of them are in latitudes where the variations in sunshine are low throughout the year, unlike Europe.
The time change is not controversial only in Europe. On March 15, the US Senate passed a bill to permanently abandon winter time and make summer time permanent. But, to come into effect, it will still have to be voted on by the House of Representatives, then signed into law by President Joe Biden.