No official organization attributes the title of dean or dean of humanity, but the specialists agreed to say that this nun was the oldest living person whose civil status had been verified.
mo12345lemonde with AFP
At 118, it was the dean of humanity since April. The French Sister André died on the night of Monday to Tuesday, at the age of 118, announced Tuesday evening at the Agency France-Presse (AFP) the management of the Toulon retirement home where she lived.
“She died at 2 am. There is a great sadness but she wanted it, it was her desire to join her adored brother. For her, it is a liberation,” said David Tavella, Responsible for the communication of the accommodation establishment for dependent elderly people Sainte-Catherine-Labouré.
No official organization attributes the title of dean or dean of humanity, but the specialists agreed to say that Sister André was the oldest living person whose civil status had been verified. The Guinness Records book had expressed the same opinion since April 25, a few days after the death, at 119, of the Japanese Kane Tanaka.
For several years, Sister André, born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904 in Alès (Gard), did not hide a certain weariness. Nailed on a blind, blind wheelchair, she wanted to “withdraw from this case”. But “the good Lord does not hear me,” she told AFP, who had met her in January 2022.
She is, according to Laurent Toussaint, specialist in extreme longevity in France, the fourth person to have lived the longest in the history of humanity, behind Kane Tanaka and an American and especially behind the Frenchman Jeanne Calment, Dead at 122 in Arles in 1997, who remains the person who has lived the longest in the history of humanity and whose civil status has been verified.
According to Laurent Toussaint, who participates in the international base on the Longevity IDL (International Database on Longevity) in connection with the French Institute of Demographic Studies (INED), the new dean of the French would be a 112 -year -old Vendée. Marie-Rose Tessier, née Bousseau on May 21, 1910, lives in an accommodation establishment for the elderly dependent on Sables-d’Olonne, according to the local press.
You must nevertheless be “very prudent”, insisted Laurent Toussaint with AFP because it is possible that an even older person is not known or not yet made known.