Lucile Randon, a French nun considered the oldest person in the world, dies at 118

Lucile Randon, a French nun who held the title of the oldest person in the world, died Tuesday at the age of 118 in the city of Toulon (France), reported the nursing home where she had lived for more than a decade.

According to the Gerontological Research Group (GRG) list of supercentenarians, Randon

.

The Guinness Book of World Records confirmed her title in April last year when she was 118 years and 73 days old.

Randon was born on February 11, 1904, and took the name Sister André when she entered a Catholic order in 1944. Before becoming a nun, she cared for orphans and the elderly in a hospital for 28 years.

She lived "a full life," worked as a teacher and cared for children during World War II, according to the Guinness Book.

In 2019, she was made an honorary citizen of Toulon and received a letter from Pope Francis.

Lucile Randon on her 117th birthday in 2021. Nicolas Tucat / AFP - Getty Images file

Randon not only held the title of the world's longest-lived person: she was also the oldest survivor of COVID-19, contracting the virus and recovering in 2021, the Guinness Book detailed.

The nun had also survived the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic.

[The oldest person on record in the US dies at 115]

At 118, she was partially deaf and used a wheelchair, but said she liked to keep busy.

“They get me up at 7 in the morning, they give me breakfast and then they put me at my desk, where I keep busy with little things,” she told the Guinness Book.

Some of her relatives assured that the nun drank a glass of wine every day and liked to eat chocolates.

"For her, it's freedom"

“There is enormous sadness, but she wanted it to happen, it was her wish to be reunited with her dear brother.

For her, (having died) is freedom," said David Tavella, a Randon spokesman quoted by the CNN news network.

According to Tavella, the nun died this Tuesday at 2:00 am (local time).

The mayor of Toulon, Hubert Falco, confirmed the news on his Twitter account.

“It is with immense sadness and emotion that I learned tonight of the death of the oldest person in the world #SisterAndré,” Falco tweeted along with a photograph.

"André was above all a deeply good and endearing woman, devoted to others

," she assured, noting that the nun would have turned 119 in February.

She “she was very frank, very spontaneous” and “incredibly modern”.

This January the oldest person on record in the United States also died.

Her name was Bessie Laurena Hendricks, she lived through the sinking of the Titanic, both World Wars, and the Great Depression.

She was 115 years old.