"I love the philosophical stuff of physics but I find the cited article completely incomprehensible, but then I also find French incomprehensible. It may be the inadequacy of the reporter's writing skills. What piques my interest is that my man John A. Wheeler says there's some merit in the new paradigm. "

I don't get it either.
The universe changes- that is time.
Our perception of time is "all in our head"- as is the perception of everything. We put time into a measurable objective quantity- seconds or days. We can measure time differently, per car accident, per kisses, whatever. The cycle of the day and dividing it further is just an obvious system which has practical value.