What is the standard time zone used in Paris, France?

The standard time zone used in Paris, France, is Central European Time (CET).

Paris follows CET at UTC+01:00 during the standard-time portion of the year. In summer, clocks normally move forward to Central European Summer Time (CEST), which is UTC+02:00, under Europe’s daylight-saving schedule. Thus, CET is the correct answer for a question asking about standard time, even though the clock may show CEST for part of the year.

France’s timekeeping history is more complicated than the modern label suggests. Metropolitan France used Paris-based local time before adopting Greenwich Mean Time in 1911. After wartime changes and later reforms, UTC+01:00 became the country’s winter standard. Paris is also the reference city in the IANA time-zone identifier Europe/Paris. A common mix-up is choosing Greenwich Mean Time because France lies near the Greenwich meridian geographically; legal time zones are political and historical systems, not simply longitude bands.