Sister André, a nun born in 1904, tested positive for the virus on January 16, according to David Tavella, communications director at the Sainte Catherine Labouré nursing home in Toulon, southern France, where she lives.
André, born Lucille Randon, showed no symptoms, Tavella said in an interview with the public radio station France Inter.
“I didn’t know I had it,” said André in an interview with CNN partner BFMTV. “No, I wasn’t afraid because I wasn’t afraid of dying.”
André is preparing to celebrate her 117th birthday on Thursday, and Tavella told France Inter that her favorite birthday meal is foie gras and baked Alaska.
“Sister André’s birthday is at a good time – it couldn’t be a better time as it will mark the beginning of great festivities that will be organized around this relaxation of our limitations,” Tavella told BFMTV. “Our residents can leave their room, eat together, participate in activities.”
André worked as a governess and teacher and taught the children to be “very polite,” she told French TV station CNEWS.
She’s lived through two world wars, as well as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic – she told CNEWS she hadn’t contracted the deadly virus – and remains philosophical about the coronavirus.
“It will come and go,” she told BFMTV. “I do not know.”
André became the oldest living person in France in October 2017 after Honorine Rondello’s death, and is the second-oldest Frenchman ever, after Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years old.