At 3 a.m., it becomes 2 a.m.
In the night from Saturday 24 to Sunday 25 October 2026, clocks across metropolitan France fall back one hour. At 03
, they return to 02. That night contains one extra hour, and every minute between 02 and 03 is lived through twice.This is not an isolated national choice. A European directive of 19 January 2001 sets the rule for all EU member states: the switch happens on the last Sunday of March and the last Sunday of October, at 1 a.m. coordinated universal time. The entire Union changes at the same physical instant. The displayed hour depends on the time zone; the Union spans three.
Two wars, two shocks, two creations
Daylight saving time was born in France in 1916, during the First World War. The argument carried in parliamentary debates that April can be reduced to a single sentence: neglect no source of economy in wartime. The idea came from Britain; other countries at war adopted it the same year. The measure returned every summer until the Second World War.
Two hours ahead of Greenwich: that is what German time imposed during the Occupation. In 1945, a decree abolished daylight saving and fixed French legal time at Greenwich plus one hour, year-round. A compromise between the occupier’s time and the geographical time zone. No seasonal change between 1945 and 1976.
Then the 1973 oil shock made energy expensive. A decree of 19 September 1975 reinstated daylight saving from spring 1976, to reduce artificial lighting in the evening. The measure was presented as temporary.
What health studies measure
Punctual effects have been measured, each tied to a season and a country. A meta-analysis of seven studies, published in 2019 in the Journal of Clinical Medicine, finds a slight rise in heart attack risk in the two weeks following a clock change: of the order of 5%, but this rise reaches statistical significance only after the spring transition; after the autumn one, no effect is demonstrated.
In Denmark, a study covering 185,419 hospital-diagnosed episodes of unipolar depression observes an 11% increase in incidence rate after the switch to winter time. The effect dissipates over roughly ten weeks. No equivalent effect in spring.
The overall picture remains open. The European Commission writes as much in its 2018 proposal: the evidence does not allow a conclusion, with positive and negative effects weighed against each other.
The European case for abolition
In 2018, the European Commission proposed ending seasonal clock changes. An online consultation gathered around 4.6 million responses, a record turnout; 84% of respondents voted to end the system. In France, a National Assembly consultation in 2019 drew more than two million participants, of whom 83.71% favoured abolition.
On 26 March 2019, the European Parliament voted in favour of abolition: 410 for, 192 against. It aimed for the changes to end in 2021. But that vote alone does not make law: the Council of the Union, representing governments, must also agree. That agreement has never come. Member states requested impact assessments. Each country would need to choose its permanent time, and those choices would need to be coordinated between neighbours to avoid a tangle of time zones. In October 2025, Spain revived the file at the Council, with the support of Finland and Poland. As of September 2026, no decision to abolish exists.
The 1975 decree established a temporary measure. In 2026, it has been in force for fifty years. No end date has been set.
