The hour of discord. Lebanon woke up on Sunday, March 25, divided around the time change: the government decided Thursday to delay the transition to summer time by a month, but part of the country refuses to comply with this last-minute announcement.

The resigning government of Najib Mikati took this decision without giving the reason, two days before the planned transition to summer time as every last Sunday of March.

The move was interpreted as aimed at shortening the fasting day in the Muslim month of Ramadan, which began on Thursday, angering Christian politicians and clerics.

Disruptions to international flights

The Maronite Patriarchate, the most powerful Christian community in Lebanon, denounced a decision "taken without consultation" and announced that it would not comply. The patriarchate "took this position so as not to accentuate Lebanon's isolation," spokesman Walid Ghayad told AFP.

The decision caused disruptions to international flights or foreign-linked institutions, with many countries switching to daylight saving time on Sunday. The national airline, Middle East Airlines, announced that it was "advancing the schedules of scheduled flights" by one hour" from Beirut.

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The powerful Catholic school system said its schools would follow daylight saving time starting Monday.

Two of the largest private television channels, MTV and LBCI, also switched to summer time on Saturday night, explaining that the government's decision would have had an impact on their operation.

"If the state had taken this decision a month in advance, and not 48 hours, there would have been no problem," LBCI CEO Pierre Daher told AFP, lamenting that the case had taken a "confessional turn".

The two main Christian parties, the Lebanese Forces and the Free National Movement, also spoke out against the decision of the prime minister, who has led the country since the mandate of the president, a Maronite Christian, expired nearly five months ago.

The resigning prime minister, a Sunni Muslim, did not explain the reasons for his decision. But a video leaked on social media shows parliament speaker Nabih Berri, a Shiite Muslim, asking him not to switch to daylight saving time to allow people observing the fast of Ramadan, which lasts from sunrise to sunset, to break it an hour earlier.

The case provoked an avalanche of satirical comments on social media, with one netizen even wondering if a "new civil war" would break out because of the conflict.

With AFP

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