On 2020-06-12 03:21, Paul Eggert wrote:
Still, it does appear that, at least according to US press accounts, common practice in France was to stop the clocks.
That "all French clocks stopped" for 00:09:21 is a misreading of French newspapers; this sort of adjustment applies only to certain remote-controlled clocks ("pendules pneumatiques", of which there existed perhaps a dozen in Paris, and which simply could not be set back remotely), but not to all the clocks in all French towns and villages. So even contemporary sources may be plain wrong. For instance, the following story in the "Courrier de Saône-et-Loire" 1911-03-11, page 2, online at [https://www.retronews.fr/societe/echo-de-presse/2018/01/29/1911-change-lheur...] only works if legal time was stepped back (was not monotone): "On fait observer que des enfants qui naîtraient à minuit moins 5 et mourraient à minuit de l'ancienne heure, se trouveront être morts avant d'être nés, l'heure ayant reculé et supprimé théoriquement 9 minutes et 25[sic] secondes de leur existence, c'est-à-dire plus qu'ils n'en pouvaient dépenser." [One can observe that children who had been born at midnight less 5 [minutes] and who had died at midnight of the old time, would turn out to be dead before being born, time having been set back and having suppressed 9 minutes and 25 seconds of their existence, that is, more than they could spend.] Michael Deckers.