Question 7658 — health

Summary

Ms. Brigitte Barèges draws the attention of the Minister to the Minister of Labor, Health, Solidarity and Families, responsible for health and access to care, to the seasonal time change. Established in 1975 following the oil crisis, the time change persists today despite an unequivocal scientific and citizen consensus regarding its deleterious effects. The national consultation organized by the National Assembly in 2019 reveals that 83.71% of the 2.1 million participants wish to put an end to it, a remarkable convergence with the 84% in favor during the 2018 European consultation. The National Institute of Health and Medical Research documents the multiple consequences of induced chronobiological disruption: sleep and alertness disorders, difficulties with attention and memorization, irritability, digestive problems and dehydration. Even more worrying, epidemiological data reveal a significant increase in heart attacks and strokes after the switch to summer time, as well as a 40% increase in accidents involving pedestrians during the switch to winter time. These health risks particularly affect vulnerable populations (children, elderly people, shift workers) who require up to two weeks of adaptation according to sleep specialists. The founding economic argument of this measure is today invalidated, the energy savings being described as “negligible” by contemporary experts. As the President of the French Society of Chronobiology at Inserm points out, “if we weigh up the “savings” made and the health costs on an individual and collective scale, the choice to stop the time change appears obvious.” This unanimous scientific position is in line with European recommendations, a directive adopted in 2019 providing for the elimination of the time change by 2021, an initiative which remains inexplicably without follow-up to this day. Faced with this convergence of scientific expertise and societal expectations, she would like to know the current position of the French Government regarding this directive European Union, the timetable envisaged to definitively rule on this highly impactful question for public health, as well as the option which would be favored between the permanent maintenance of summer or winter time, knowing that chronobiologists underline the physiological advantages of winter time, closer to the natural biological rhythm.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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