Jeanne Calment, officially dead at the age of 122 years and 164 days in 1997 - a world record for longevity of all sexes - liked to say that "God had forgotten her". But Russian researchers have recently concluded to a trickery. After analyzing for months biographies, interviews, photos, as well as the archives of Arles, the city in the south of France where she lived, they say that Jeanne Calment was in fact dead in the 1930s and that her daughter Yvonne would have usurped his identity so as not to pay tax on his estate. She is believed to have died in 1997 at the age of 99.
"A dependent instruction". The theory immediately aroused both interest and controversy among scientists. The French demographer and gerontologist Jean-Marie Robine, who participated in the Guinness book validation of the age records of Jeanne Calment, formally denies Europe 1 the Russian conclusions. "The article that I have on my desk for a few days is a kind of instruction to load.The researchers have absolutely not returned to our work and looked at all the equipment we had.I read a lot of things on Jeanne Calment, but almost no scientific work.They fire any wood, "denounces the Frenchman.
"Nothing holds". Russian researchers present in their study 17 elements supporting their thesis. "From my point of view, nothing stands, it shows above all a total misunderstanding of what was France in the 19th and 20th century," lambasted Jean-Marie Robine. "During the 19th century, good people, doctors, medical professors, lawyers, were passionate about longevity and did a kind of shopping for centenarians.They looked for every conceivable case of centenarians in France, England, the Netherlands, etc. They then tried to validate or invalidate them, and gradually they drew up a list of traps, "he explains first. To avoid these pitfalls, it was recommended "to question the person during his lifetime, on events that only she can know," says the researcher.
The dean interviewed on many occasions. In fact, Jean-Marie Robine and his colleague, the scientist Michel Allard, did meet Jeanne Calment, "about thirty times", between his 117 years and his 120 years. "Everything is recorded," says the researcher. During these interviews, Jeanne Calment was indeed able to give the names of her school teachers as well as those of maids of her building. Information that only she could know. "At the same time, we had hired a documentalist, who listed all the documents available in Arles, Jeanne Calment has never left Arles, her family is from Arles for several generations, and the city has extraordinary archives. parish registers, all vital records, all census records, and all school records. "
For their part, Russian researchers are camping on their position.