Like every year, we are changing the time for the transition to summer 2023 in France. The change will take place this weekend, on the night of Saturday March 25 to Sunday March 26. Do not panic, for electronic devices, the change will be done automatically.
We will therefore move the hands forward one hour: at 2 a.m., it will be 3 a.m.
Applied in France for the first time in 1916, after Germany and the United Kingdom, the purpose of the time change was to save energy resources, such as coal. Abandoned in 1944, it was finally applied again in 1975 in a decree which fixed summer time at GMT+2.
Objective: reduce artificial lighting times in the evening
Exception made overseas, where the time change does not apply, except for Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon.
A measure which was to be temporary, but which is still applied.
Indeed, the European Commission had announced its desire to eliminate the time change. The benefits of this change are increasingly contested with the generalization of low-consumption light bulbs. In a public consultation launched in 2018 at European level, 84% of respondents were in favor of abolishing the time change.
Five years later, Member States have failed to agree and deletion is no longer on the agenda.
