The French Southern and Antarctic Territories (TAAF in French) are a collection of remote islands and an Antarctic sector administered by France. For timezone purposes, the IANA database assigns them to Indian/Kerguelen, UTC+5, based on the Kerguelen Islands, the most significant of the group.

There is no permanent civilian population. Port-aux-Français on Kerguelen houses a rotating scientific station of around 70 to 100 researchers and support staff, depending on the season. The researchers study meteorology, biology, and geophysics. They share a clock, but no one is watching it too closely.

The Kerguelen Islands: desolation made beautiful

The Kerguelen Archipelago sits at about 49 degrees south latitude in the southern Indian Ocean, roughly equidistant from the southern tips of Africa, India, and Australia. There is no regular transport. Supply ships arrive a few times a year. No commercial flights land there.

The islands are volcanic, swept by near-constant sub-Antarctic wind, covered in brown tussock grass, and populated by enormous colonies of king penguins, elephant seals, and albatross. The main island, Grande Terre, has a deeply fjorded coastline with hundreds of kilometers of inlets. Cook himself visited in 1776 and found it so bleak he named a prominent cape “Desolation.”

The French claimed the islands in 1772 and have maintained sovereignty continuously. During World War II, a German cruiser refueled in the uninhabited archipelago in 1940; the isolation made it a useful covert stop.

UTC+5 and the sun

UTC+5 for Kerguelen is a matter of some practical convenience rather than geographic precision. The islands sit at around 70 degrees east longitude, which would naturally place them closer to UTC+4:40 by solar reckoning. UTC+5 puts them in line with Pakistan and parts of Central Asia, which is geographically odd but administratively manageable for a research station that coordinates with mainland France and Indian Ocean shipping.

The sun rises and sets at dramatically different times depending on the season, as befits a sub-Antarctic latitude. In December, the sky barely darkens. In June, the researchers get about eight hours of daylight. Nobody is changing the clocks.

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