Tick tock, tick tock! After switching to summer time last March, it's almost time to switch back to winter time. In concrete terms, we'll be getting an extra hour's sleep over the last weekend of October.
So, on the night of Saturday October 26 to Sunday October 27, 2024, at two in the morning, it will actually be one o'clock. So you'll have to turn back the hands of your watch and clocks by sixty minutes. The good news is that your smartphone and other computers will take care of this update automatically.
It's a change that can be confusing for many, and one that raises a number of questions: in 2019,European Union deputies voted in favor of abolishing the time change in all EU countries. Following this, we were led to believe that each changeover to summer or winter time could be the last. Is this really the case?
Remember: in September 2018, the European Commission proposed to suspend the six-monthly time change once and for all in 2021, even though 84% of Europeans had voted in favor of abolishing it. However, the European Commission left it up to each member state to decide whether to maintain winter or summer time. In France, more than 59% of the votes were in favor of maintaining summer time. Each member state was then required to make its decision by April 1, 2020. However, due to the Covid-19 crisis, the issue remains unresolved, leaving the end of daylight saving time, originally scheduled for 2021, in abeyance."The end of the time change was then postponed due in particular to the Covid-19 health crisis. This text on the end of the time change is no longer on the agenda", we read on the service-public website.
For the issue of time changes to be finally addressed and resolved, all European Union countries need to harmonize their choice of legal time, in order to avoid excessively restrictive time differences. For the 27 to reach agreement, lengthy discussions must take place... all the more so as some southern countries do not agree with putting an end to these time changes. France will therefore continue to switch from summer to winter time every six months.
We remind you that winter time will be the official time in France until March 30, 2025, when summer time will return.
For the record, the time change in France was introduced following the oil crisis of 1973-1974. The initial aim was to align the hours of activity with the hours of sunshine, in order to limit the use of artificial lighting. Then, in 1998, the European Union decided to harmonize the time change dates between the various member countries.
