Some initial feedback. 1. The notion in the README file is that > Historical local time information has been included here not because it > is particularly useful, but rather to: > > * give an idea of the variety of local time rules that have > existed in the past and thus an idea of the variety that may be > expected in the future; > > * provide a test of the generality of the local time rule description > system. That being so, we'd want to be on the lookout for rare timekeeping changes and be sure to include them. 2. A pragmatic answer to how many zones to have for France is "as many as are needed to describe the present day zones." As you noted, though, doing even this at the country level yields lots of zones. 3. As a last resort, simply reporting UCT for a zone when it's doing something awkward is a possibility. --ado