１１８歳の仏修道女、世界最高齢に　田中カ子さん死去で

【マルセイユＡＦＰ＝時事】ギネス世界記録で世界最高齢に認定されていた田中カ子さん（１１９）が１９日に死去したことが２５日、発表された。これにより、フランスの修道女リュシル・ランドンさん（１１８）が新たな世界最高齢となった。（写真は南仏トゥーロンの高齢者施設で、１１７歳の誕生日を翌日に控え、祈りをささげる修道女のリュシル・ランドンさん）
　「シスター・アンドレ」と呼ばれているランドンさんは、第１次世界大戦開戦の１０年前、１９０４年２月１１日に南仏で生まれた。
　現在は、地中海沿岸のトゥーロンにある高齢者施設で暮らす。目は見えなくなったが、毎日、朝食と朝のミサで始まる生活を送っている。
　施設の広報担当者によると、世界最高齢となったことについて本人は喜んでおり、「注目を浴びて上機嫌」とのこと。ただ最終的な目標は、１９９７年に１２２歳で亡くなったとされるフランス人女性ジャンヌ・カルマンさんより長生きすることだという。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/04/26-10:52）

A French nun who recently celebrated her 118th birthday with her traditional port-and-chocolate cocktail is now the world's oldest known person, following the death announced Monday of a Japanese woman one year her senior.
Lucile Randon, known as Sister Andre, was born in southern France on February 11, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.
She now lives at a nursing home in Toulon along the Mediterranean coast, beginning every day with breakfast and then a morning mass, though her eyes can no longer see.
She's happy, she likes very much this attention, said the home's communications director David Tavella, adding that a short press conference would be held Tuesday morning.
But it's just another step, because her real goal is to overtake Jeanne Calment, a French woman who was reportedly 122-years-old when she died in 1997.
This year Sister Andre got a handwritten New Year's greeting from President Emmanuel Macron, among the many letters and boxes of chocolates sent by well-wishers.
I was always admired for my wisdom and intelligence, but now people could care less because I'm stubborn, she jokingly told an AFP in an interview for her 118th tour around the sun.
I thinking of getting out of this business but they won't let me, she said.
She worked as a governess in Paris -- a period she once called the happiest time of her life -- before taking her religious vows with the Daughters of Charity.
Previously the person deemed the world's oldest by the International Database on Longevity (IDL) and Guinness World Records was Kane Tanaka, whose death in Japan on April 19 was announced Monday.
With her death, Sister Andre indeed becomes the oldest, and by far, since the next oldest is a Polish woman who is 115, said Laurent Toussaint, a computer scientist and amateur tracker for the IDL as well as the French institute of demographic studies (INED).
Most centenarians are found in the world's so-called blue zones, where people live longer than average, such as Okinawa in Japan or on the Italian island of Sardinia.
But France, while not considered a blue zone, nonetheless has 30,000 centenarians, according to statistics institute Insee, with around 40 of them 110 or older.