Morocco Abruptly Drops Clock Change

Morocco has decided to scrap winter time and will instead keep its clocks at summer time, GMT+1, all year around.

The announcement comes less than two days before the clocks would have gone back by one hour on Sunday.

Avoiding the switch would save “an hour of natural light,” Administrative Reform Minister Mohammed Ben Abdelkader told Maghreb Arabe Press.

The north African nation joins a number of others, mainly in Africa and Asia, which do not use daylight saving.

Reaction to the change has been mixed on social media, with one person calling the lastminute decision Kafkaesque:

Another questioned how it would affect activities during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan:

Others welcomed the decision, like this commentator in Algeria who joked his newly aligned Moroccan neighbours would also be closer to Algerian culture including its square pizzas:

End of Twitter post by @ Inal_2715

And this social media user is simply relieved that Morocco will remain at “tea time” time throughout the year:

While many people around the world enjoy the extra hour in bed that comes as clocks go back one hour for winter time, there have been prominent campaigns to abolish it.

One UK campaign group even says staying at summer time all year-round would reduce traffic accidents, because road users would be able to see better in the evenings.

The European Union said in August that it would recommend that its member countries scrap the twiceyearly clock change.