Change to winter time: by the way, what is it?

Beware, France goes to winter time in the night this Saturday night. The clocks are back one hour this weekend.

Each time, it's the same puzzle and the same questions: we move forward or back one hour? Will it be day earlier or later? Will we sleep an hour longer or an hour less? To help you see more clearly and do not go wrong, L'Express takes stock of the transition to winter time.

• At three o'clock he will be …

…Two o'clock. It will therefore be necessary to think of turning back one hour the clocks with manual adjustment. The country will then have only one hour more time than GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), at GMT +1, while it is at GMT +2 from the end of March to the end of October.

This schedule change takes place all over Europe at the same time on the last Sunday of October to avoid transport and communication problems.

• A chance for sleepers

With the switch to winter time, the French will sleep an hour more … But the benefit of this hour of rab 'would be quickly swept away by the effects in the longer term. Critics of the change in time denounce the negative effects on health, including disruption of biological rhythms, especially among children and the elderly.

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The change of time also has many enemies in the agricultural world, particularly because of the disturbances that this change of pace causes in livestock.

• A day that starts earlier

Winter makes the sun make appearances shorter and shorter until the winter solstice. However, with the change of time, the star will rise a little earlier. While the sunrise is scheduled for Saturday at 8:18, the next day the schedule goes to 7:21. As a logical counterpart to this change, the sun will set also an hour earlier.

Nevertheless, this change on time is supposed to coincide business hours with sunshine to limit the use of artificial lighting – and thus save energy. On its website, the Ministry of Ecological Transition that "the time change has saved 440 gigawatt hours in lighting in 2009, the consumption [d’électricité] about 800 000 households. "But the savings would actually be marginal, according to the European Commission.

• A last change for the road?

By 2019, the European Union could change time for the last time. Last August, the European Commission decided to end the change of seasonal time. The proposal must now be adopted by the European Parliament and the EU Council (the body comprising the Member States) to become effective.

READ ALSO >> Towards a suppression of winter time?

In the meantime, the Commission has asked each EU country to choose between keeping summer or winter time by the end of April 2019. If the timetable proposed by Brussels is respected, the change of March 31, 2019 would be the last mandatory daylight saving time.

In particular, the Commission justified its proposal with the result of an online public consultation this summer, which was answered by 4.6 million people, 84% of whom voted in favor of abolishing the time change.