During the night from Saturday to Sunday, you will have to set the alarm from 3 hours to 2 hours and thus switch to winter time. A member of two associations, Aveyronnaise fights against the change of time.
“I very much hope we give up summer time.”“, says Henriette Guitar, a citizen of Aveyron, with conviction. Every year, at the same time, it happens again. And with this eternal question that comes up again and again: When will the change of time be abolished? Well, it will not be so in 2023. Because At the moment, no one can come to an agreement. Since 1983, in France, fanatical activists have worked through the Association of Citizens of Equitable and Sustainable Time (Ached, formerly the Association Against Dual Daylight Saving Time) so that we in France too can stop once and for all changing the clock every six months.
“We show up every time times change.”
“We have been fighting for years to return to a fixed time, which is GMT + 1 hour.”, says its president, Leticia Moro Gabarin, on the other end of the phone. She is an agricultural engineer, and since 2018 has taken over the torch from her mother, a historical figure in the struggle for winter time, after her death. In other words, the winter time we will be observing this Sunday is from 3 a.m. A battle that finds its voice even in the department.
At eighty years old, Henriette, a retired mathematics teacher, is spending happy days in her native Aveyron, in… “my grandfather’s house”, After spending his career in Marseille. She is also a member of the La Méridienne association, which also opposes time changes. “For about twenty years, we’ve been protesting every time change! We’d like to stay on winter time all year round and go back to our time zone. ” Even if the majority of Europeans prefer daylight saving time, this octogenarian advocates moving closer to solar time. “ I live in a rural area where livestock farming is major. Farmers have to follow the sun to bring out the animals And they are less upset “she explained. Beyond animal welfare, this octogenarian pushes his thinking further. For Henriette, winter time remains primarily the time most compatible with the rhythm of the human body.
“Babies sleep better, we feel less tired and animals are less annoying.”she adds. “The benefits of maintaining GMT + 1 winter time throughout the year will allow to provide light in the morning and reduce sleep disturbances because sleep occurs at a time when there is less light. At a time of urgency to save energy and climate we fight without forgetting the challenges (health, air pollution, loss of biodiversity , etc.), let us adopt this absolutely free measure so that the gap between social time and solar time is as minimal as possible!
Improving sleep quality, animal welfare, and combating global warming
To discuss the option of keeping only winter time, the association relies on numerous scientific studies published in France but also abroad, in other European countries, which have already adopted abandoning daylight saving time, such as Portugal, which has joined the time zone of Great Britain. In its communications, Ached does not fail to mention that France was initially aligned with the Greenwich meridian before having to follow German time in 1940. This same time zone was discovered again in the 1970s when the time was re-changed for energy saving reasons. Meanwhile, Henriette is looking forward to returning to winter time this weekend.
