We switch to daylight saving time on Sunday 26th March! But by the way, why are we changing the time?

The story of the time change is a bit like an episode of Dallasthere are many twists and turns.

Where does the time change come from?

This Sunday, March 26, we change the schedule. L’occasion d’essayer de comprendre la raison pour laquelle nous sommes calés sur le créneau horaire de Berlin, qui est loin géographiquement, au lieu d’être sur celui de Londres — lequel est juste au-dessus de nous, à peu de choses Neighbor.

First thing to know: Technically, standard time is standard timeand it is daylight saving time which turns everything upside down, and which is therefore artificial time.

Originally the time was aligned with the sun: in practice, when the sundial indicated noon, it was actually noon. Which is logical, we agree. But that was before, a long time ago.

In 1923, daylight saving time arrived. At the time, the government created an hour gap between March and October and France was then synchronized, literally instantly, with the UK. So far nothing extraordinary.

Matters became more complicated in 1940, when France was overrun by the German army. With Nazi troops occupying French territory (this is not a Godwin point), it was even more practical to be set in Berlin time.

However, German time is in the GMT +1 time zone… Hence the need to move our clock forward one notch. So, compared to the sun, we have gone to +1 hour in winter and +2 hours in summer.

When the Germans are kicked out of France, the government thinks “Yippee, let’s change the clock!” ». Unlessthey just remove the time shift (summer time as well as winter time) adapting to solar time… i.e. always to GMT+1.

At that time, we are at GMT+1 all year round. OK, it’s a bit of a messand that doesn’t really explain why we have change again today…

In 1973, switch to daylight saving time to save energy

Obviously for economic reasons.

In 1973 there was an oil shock (maybe it’s time for history lessons!). Mass, it means that the government will try to save money. Consequently, the then president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, told himself so it might be a good thing to reduce your home energy consumptionfor example by sticking as much as possible to your habits and the amount of sun.

So instead of making us get up at night (which means turning on the lights, for example, or even the car headlights), he played it slow and decided to lose out on daylight saving time and winter.

Time change: do you move the clock forward or backward?

Which brings me to the ultimate tip for whether to move the clock forward, backward (or let the magic of time-changing technology work itself).

AS in winter, the sun comes up later, fine us too… It’s a bit like all the clocks on Earth “stopped” for an hour, and you continued to sleep.

If you have a watch that doesn’t do it itself, you can stop it for an hour or wind it for an hour.

In reverse, in summer the sun rises earlier… yes, you too. Here because !