Time change: winter time is coming! Date and instructions for use – Linternaute.com

CHANGE OF TIME WINTER 2021. The change to winter time is for this weekend. On what date and time exactly does it occur? In which direction do the hands move? Is this the last time change? How to use the 2021 winter time change.

[Mis à jour le 26 octobre 2021 à 16h18] THE LATEST INFO. What impact will the 2021 winter time change, which takes place during the last weekend of October (see below for the exact date and time), will it have on our body? Dixit René Clarisse, chronobiologist at the François Rabelais University in Tours, who spoke to the Dauphiné Libéré on October 26, this one hour shift has no real “impact” on our biological rhythms, since the latter are in fact upset “from a difference of 6 hours”.

The changeover to winter time 2021 takes place precisely on the night of Saturday October 30 to Sunday October 31. It is at three in the morning that the hands will swing back one hour. Enough to instantly iron our smartphones at two in the morning. We will then gain an additional hour of sleep, but will lose an hour of natural light at the end of the day. As for our shift with universal time (UTC, also called “mean solar time”), on which we are ahead, it will be reduced by one hour (GMT + 1) instead of two (GMT + 2, the offset in effect for daylight saving time). Established in mainland France since 1976, that is to say for more than 40 years, the double seasonal time change sees its credo, “saving energy”, long contested.

Is it the last time change or not? Several changes to winter and summer time still await us, although the decision to end it has been officially recorded for two and a half years. While it had planned to apply this decision in 2021, the European Union fell behind on the issue because of the health crisis in Covid, but also the logistical difficulties that such a measure can pose between EU countries. A situation which makes the time change device even more confusing for the French, as shown by the results of the exclusive YouGov poll for Linternaute.com which can be viewed at the bottom of the page.

The 2021 winter time change always takes place on the last (full) weekend of October, at 3 a.m. on the night from Saturday to Sunday. The next change to winter time will therefore take place on the night of Saturday October 30 to Sunday October 31, 2021.

On the night of Saturday, October 30 to Sunday, October 31, 2021, at 3 a.m., you will have to turn the hands of your old watch or your ancestral clock back one hour. It will then be 2 hours. Of course smartphones like all connected devices will switch to winter time automatically, without any intervention being necessary. The maneuver will artificially save us an hour of sleep. But we will also lose an hour of light at the end of the day, in addition to the natural and gradual shortening of the days as the day approaches. winter solstice, in December.

Since a decision dated March 2019, each of the member states of the European Union can choose their favorite permanent time (in other words, winter or summer). It was expected that everyone would express their choice on April 1, 2020 … which was not done. It was then as a whole or in groups of states that the EU countries had to coordinate. From there, countries wishing to maintain daylight saving time permanently should have changed the time for the last time on March 28, 2021, and those wishing to decide definitively for winter time, on March 31, 2021. October 2021. The problem? In the midst of the Covid-19 health crisis, the European Council simply postponed any deadline, if only to raise the subject.

In France, 59% of voters in a citizen consultation were in favor of choosing summer time as permanent seasonal time. But for the process to advance, the countries of the European Union must in particular succeed in harmonizing their choice of legal time. Objective: to avoid the patchwork effect of time zones between neighbors. However, as the MEP EELV Karima Delli deplored to the South West, on March 26, 2021, “several Southern European States were not particularly favorable to the end of the time change, on the contrary from northern European countries. Everyone had their own idea. ” Due to the current blockage, “it would be extremely difficult to envisage an end of the time change for 2022 or 2023”, she concluded.

How do the French approach the change of winter time?

According to an exclusive survey conducted by YouGov France for the Internet user *, to the question “Do you know if a time change will take place this winter?”, 77% of the people questioned answered “Yes”, 14% “I don’t know” and 9% “No” . The prospect of near the end of the seasonal time change is indeed confusing the tracks. On the mechanism of the time change itself, the French are relatively well informed, since the question “Do you know if we advance or go back one hour during the change of winter time? select only one answer. “, 62% of them gave the correct answer, in other words” We go back one hour (at 3 am it will be 2 am) “. 25% got it clockwise, and 13% “didn’t know”.

62% of French people know “that we go back one hour” when switching to winter time

To the question “Are you going to modify your bedtime to adapt to the change of time?”, The majority of respondents answered “No” (62%), among whom 40% “Probably not” and 22% “Certainly not “. On the contrary, 34% intend to adjust their bedtime, among which 18% will do so “definitely” and 16% “probably”. 4% do not know what it will be.

Another question from the poll submitted by YouGov to its panel after being developed by Linternaute.com, was “Ultimately, to what extent are you for, or against, staying permanently in winter time? ? “. 41% of respondents answered “For”, 40% said they were “Against”. The result is therefore very tight. If we refine the verdict, 18% of respondents say they are “totally for” to stay permanently in winter time, while 23% are “more for”.

41% of those polled are “for permanent winter time”, 40% “against”

On the other hand, 22% of French people questioned say they are “totally against” permanent winter time, and 18% “rather against”. 19% of those questioned simply do not know whether they are for or against winter time all year round, in other words a permanent difference of one hour with solar time, against a difference of two hours when is in summer time. As a reminder, in March 2019, a citizen consultation conducted via the website of the National Assembly had nevertheless given a fairly clear advantage (nearly 60%) to summer time as a permanent seasonal time.

Finally, since it still takes place for the moment, do the French feel depressed by the prospect of the change of winter time? The answer is “No” for the majority of respondents (61%). In the detail of “No”, “31%” say they are “not really” depressed and 30% “not at all” depressed. On the other hand, the fact that the change to winter time is approaching gives the drone to 38% of those questioned, among which 11% say they are “very” depressed at this idea, and 27% “a little” depressed. 1% do not know how to place themselves on this scale of depression.

* Survey conducted in line from October 6 to 7, 2021, out of 1,007 people representing the French national population aged 18 and over.