欧州最高齢の仏修道女、コロナから回復し１１７歳に

【トゥーロンＡＦＰ＝時事】新型コロナウイルスに感染後、回復した欧州最高齢のフランス人修道女が11日、117歳の誕生日を迎え、好物のデザート、ベイクドアラスカなど、ごちそうで祝った。（写真は仏南東部トゥーロンの高齢者施設で、祈りをささげる欧州最高齢の修道女シスター・アンドレことリュシル・ランドンさん）
　シスター・アンドレとして知られるリュシル・ランドンさんは１９０４年２月１１日生まれで、２度の世界大戦を生き抜いた。その間、１９人のフランス大統領が誕生している。
　ランドンさんが暮らす南東部トゥーロンの高齢者施設では新型ウイルスで１０人が死亡した。ランドンさんも感染が確認されたが、無症状だったという。
　ランドンさんは１０日、同施設でＡＦＰの取材に応じ、「それ（新型ウイルス）にかかっていると伝えられた」と語った。「確かにひどくくたびれていたが、（感染に）気付かなかった」
　世界中から取材の電話が殺到しているランドンさんは、１１７歳の誕生日に特別なことをする予定はないと話した。
　しかし、ランドンさんが暮らす高齢者施設は、家族とのテレビ電話などのお祝いを企画した。十数人の修道女が暮らす同施設は、特別なミサを計画したほか、フォアグラや鶏肉料理、ランドンさんの好物のデザート、ベイクドアラスカなどを用意したという。
　ランドンさんはロブスターも好物で、毎日小さなグラス１杯のワインを飲んでいるという。
　国際的な老人学研究団体ジェロントロジー・リサーチ・グループによると、ランドンさんは、世界では日本の田中カ子さん（１１８）に次ぐ２番目の高齢者。
　ランドンさんは若者に伝えたいことについて問われると、手を祈りの形に組んで「勇気を持って、思いやりを示して」と答えた。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2021/02/12-12:44）

Europe's oldest person, French nun Sister Andre, turns 117 on Thursday after surviving Covid-19 last month and living through two world wars, with a special birthday feast including her favourite dessert -- baked Alaska.
Born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904, Sister Andre said she didn't realise she had caught the coronavirus, which infected 81 residents of her retirement home in the southeast city of Toulon, killing 10 of them.
I'm told that I got it, the nun told AFP on Wednesday at the home, where she sat basking in the winter sun, her eyes closed and hands clasped in prayer.
I was very tired, it's true, but I didn't realise it, she added in a steady, strong voice that belies her years.
But David Tavella, spokesman for the Sainte Catherine Laboure nursing home, said she had experienced a triple confinement: in her wheelchair, in her room and without a visit.
So her birthday, it reinvigorates us, he added, following the deadly outbreak.
Sister Andre, who has been inundated with calls from reporters around the world, said she was not planning to do anything special for her 117th birthday.
But the home has other ideas, with a celebration to include a video call with her family.
The facility, home to a dozen nuns, plans a special mass, and the chef is preparing a birthday feast with foie gras, capon fillet with porcini mushrooms and Sister Andre's favourite dessert: baked Alaska.
- A glass of wine a day -
She says her favourite food is lobster and she enjoys a small glass of wine every day.
Born in the southern town of Ales in a Protestant family, she grew up as the only girl among three brothers.
One of her fondest memories was the return of two of her brothers at the end of World War I.
It was rare, in families, there were usually two dead rather than two alive. They both came back, she told AFP last year, on her 116th birthday.
As a young woman she worked as a governess to children of wealthy families in Paris, a job she said suited me very well.
She converted to Catholicism and was baptised at the age of 26. Driven by a desire to go further, she joined the Daughters of Charity order of nuns at the relatively late age of 41.
Sister Andre was then assigned to a hospital in Vichy, where she worked for 31 years and then spent 30 years in a retirement home in the French Alps before moving to Toulon.
Nineteen French presidents have occupied the Elysee presidential palace since Sister Andre was born.
She is the second-oldest living person in the world, according to the Gerontology Research Group, after Japanese woman Kane Tanaka, who is 118.
Asked what she would say to young people, Sister Andre said, hands clasped in prayer, Be brave and show compassion.