Supercentenarians, people over the age of 110, are more and more numerous in France. They are mainly present in two departments.
According to a study by the National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) published last April, a new age group is emerging in France, the “supercentenarians”. These people manage to live beyond 110 years. In 2022, 39 people died aged 110 or over in France and they are almost only women (38 out of 39). If they are the majority among centenarians (86% in 2023), among supercentenarians, their preponderance is therefore even more impressive. “Exceeding this age remains a rare event, but its frequency has in turn increased significantly in recent decades,” explains the study.
The supposed French dean is currently Marie-Rose Tessier, who lives in a nursing home in Les Sables-d’Olonne. She will celebrate her 114th birthday on May 21. In addition, among the four people recognized as having lived more than 118 years, there are two French women, Jeanne Calment (122 years old) and Lucile Rendon, who just a month ago was going to reach 119 years old.
The profile of these centenarians and supercentenarians is typical: “they are often a woman, who has done fairly tough small jobs in the open air (farmer, farmer’s wife, etc.) and has had a diet based on healthy products , unprocessed,” described specialist Laurent Toussaint, as reported by AFP. These supercentenarians are more numerous in Guadeloupe and Martinique than in the rest of the country: “Proportionally to the population, there are almost eight times more supercentenarians in Guadeloupe and Martinique than in mainland France,” explains INED.
Of the 373 deaths of supercentenarians recorded in France between 1978 and 2022 and appearing in the national identification directory of natural persons, 29 took place in Guadeloupe and Martinique. If we relate this figure to the population, their frequency is 39 per million compared to 5 per million in mainland France, or almost eight times more. This data may be surprising since life expectancies at birth for women are lower in the Antilles (83.5 years for Guadeloupe women and 82.8 years for Martinique women) than in France (85.2 years).
According to the researchers, there is no single explanation, but certain avenues are being studied. Among them, we find the hypothesis that these supercentenarians are “descendants of slaves who suffered from the slave trade.” “These extreme conditions may have led to the most robust selection and, in doing so, perhaps that of longevity genes,” the researchers indicate. “In fact, the genealogical tracing already carried out for half of the supercentenarians, or around fifteen, shows that they all descend from slaves,” the study clarified. Furthermore, it is also considered that “the simple chance of initial settlement and its evolution in an island environment could also be at the origin of this longevity”.
