The clocks went forward an hour in early March in most of USA and Canada — but Europeans think that’s a bit premature.
The first of 2026’s biannual changing of the clocks takes place on the weekend of March 28th and 29th in France and across the whole of the European Union (plus the UK).
Clocks officially go forward one hour at 2am (France time) on Sunday, March 29th, meaning that the hour between 2am and 3am disappears into the ether for the summer.
In practical terms, it means adjusting any clocks either before you go to bed or after you get up – and losing an hour of sleep for most people.
The lost hour will reappear early in the morning of Sunday, October 25th, when the clocks go back an hour for the winter.
In recent years, repeated efforts have been made to end the twice-yearly dash round the house changing the time on alarm clocks, cookers, and microwave ovens — but while EU member states now agree that the hour change should be scrapped, finding agreement on which time zone to stick with has proved more difficult.
These days, however, most electronic devices — such as smartphones, computers, and televisions — update automatically.
But, it’s argued the time change can ‘temporarily disrupt your biological clock’, particularly in the October switch back to ‘winter hours’.
The French government’s website recommends “anticipating” the time change by “gradually adjusting your rhythm a few days beforehand”.
In 2019, the French National Assembly organised an online survey on whether French people were in favour of ending time changes. Out of two million responses, some 83.7 percent said they were in favour of ending daylight saving time, while more than 60 percent said they had “negative or very negative experience(s)” with the change.
