Time change: France switches to summertime overnight from Saturday to Sunday

Get ready this weekend to sleep an hour less. On the night of Saturday, March 26 to Sunday, March 27, and like every year at the same time, the clocks will change time (but beware, only the digital ones). For precisely, at two o’clock in the morning, we will move forward one hour: it will therefore be three o’clock. This is called daylight saving time. We may lose an hour of sleep, but most of all we will gain an hour of daylight.

When is the time change in France?

Originally, the time change was established in France for economic reasons. In 1973, a terrible oil shock triggered by producing countries in response to the Yom Kippur War caused oil prices to soar. The introduction of a time change then makes it possible to take advantage of an additional hour of natural sunshine and thus save the energy consumed at the time.

In the 1980s, this change was gradually generalized to all member countries of the European Union and in 1998 the date of the time change was finally harmonised. Since then, the transition to summertime has been fixed for the last Sunday of March, and the transition to winter time for the last Sunday of October.

Will the time change end up being abolished?

The time change is less understood today than at its origins. Indeed, with low-consumption lighting and the diversification of energy sources, the gain has become minimal. According to its detractors, the time change would also cause an increase in road accidents as well as sleep disturbances among the elderly and children.

Following a public consultation launched by the European Commission in 2018, 84% of respondents said they were in favour of abolishing the time change. A draft directive was then adopted in March 2019 by the European Parliament to make this deletion effective in the summer of 2021. But due to the health context linked to Covid-19, the directive could not ultimately be voted on. For the time being, it is no longer on the agenda and the time change is therefore still relevant.