The meter actually was defined by a team of French scientists, who travelled through northern Sweden in 1736, to see how Earth was shaped near the north pole. One meter is 1/10000 of the distance between the equator and the geographical north pole, on a line through the observatory in Paris.
(presuming correction) Yeah, this was the original intent, but it's been changed. I know that at one point
there was an official 'ruler' in France, by which they were judged, but it's been changed to something based
upon distance a particular frequency of light travels over a given interval. Which is, I suspect, the real problem:
the basis of the meter is actually on time now - so one couldn't define time in terms of the distance, as well.
So, by your reasoning, it should be the temporal system, no?