[time-nuts] French Time offset

[Lux, James P]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com 
> [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Magnus Danielson
> Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 4:11 PM
> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] French Time offset
> 
> Lux, James P skrev:
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: time-nuts-bounces at febo.com
> >> [mailto:time-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On Behalf Of Jean-Louis Oneto
> >> Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2009 10:14 AM
> >> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
> >> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] French Time offset
> >>
> >> BIPM is an _international_ organisation, and apart to be 
> in France, 
> >> has nothing to do (and never had as far as I know) with the 
> >> definition of French legal time. At least no more than for 
> any other 
> >> country UTC (or TAI) based.
> >> Jean-Louis
> >>> Paris is at 2degrees 20 min longitude, which isn't enough
> >> to account
> >>> for
> >>> 12.5 minutes.  Sevres (where BIPM is) is actually a bit to
> >> the west,
> >>> so even less solar time difference.
> > 
> > 
> > Just casting about for potential meridian locations that 
> might explain the 12.5 minute difference. Maybe the central 
> longitude of France is 12.5 minutes(of time, 3 1/8th degrees 
> of longitude) from Greenwich? (like India's time zone being 
> on the half hour). Things get done for funny reasons: After 
> all, the physical size of France is why ATM "cells" (packets) 
> are 53 bytes (48 byte payload) instead of either 32 byte or 
> 64 byte payloads.
> 
> If you look at the map Arnold linked to, you will see that 
> France sits very neatly into the Zulu-timezone. Infact, 
> France is better served by it then GB. I have enjoyed the 
> incorrectness of France time-zone-wise on my many travels to 
> France, so I am not complaining from a practical point of 
> view, but it would not be my first choice if I would choose 
> something for France.
> 

And what about Spain, which is mostly WEST of 0 longitude, yet is on UTC+1