According to a text shared on the Medium platform on December 10, the daughter of Jeanne Calment, Yvonne, would have taken the identity of his mother at her death in 1930.
Yuri Deigin, a Russian who presents himself boss of Youthereum Genetics, a company that fights against aging, is at the origin of this controversy. According to him, Jeanne Calment, officially dead at the age of 122 years and 164 days in 1997 - a world record longevity of all genders - actually died in 1934 and her daughter, Yvonne, took her place so the family does not have to pay inheritance tax.
Already two other Russians had developed this theory: the mathematician Nikolai Zak and the gerontologist Valeri Novosselov, analysing for months the biographies, interviews and photos available on Jeanne Calment, as well as the archives of the city of Arles, where she lived with her family.
Jeanne Calment, 20 years old, 1895. (http://www.nealirc.org/) Source: http://www.nealirc.org/
They also gathered many testimonials from people who knew her, before ending up with this theory of identity theft. "The analysis of all these documents led me to the conclusion that the daughter of Jeanne Calment, Yvonne, took the identity of her mother," said on Monday to AFP Nikolai Zak.
Birth Certificate of jeanne Calment (Etat civil d'Arles - http://www.archives13.fr/archives13/CG13/pid/102 (archive copy at the Wayback Machine ) Source: Etat civil d'Arles - http://www.archives13.fr/archives13/CG13/pid/102 (archive copy at the Wayback Machine
A grotesque theory
A theory deemed "aberrant" by the family of the oldest woman in the world, "abracadabrantesque" by Jean-Marie Robine, who co-validated the record.
"I have always heard my grandmother talk about Jeanne's misfortune of having lost her only daughter Yvonne, then her grandson who was a doctor. This theory seems totally aberrant to me," Martine Jeanne Calment's grand cousin, Saturday, January 5th at AFP.
The French demographer, Jean-Marie Robine, who co-validated the record of longevity of Jeanne Calment, believes that the Russian thesis "does not hold up", comments reported by Le Parisien.
"We have never done so much to prove the age of a person."
Jeanne Calment (1875-1997), the world's oldest woman, at 22. / Or Yvonne Calment (1898-1934), daughter of Jeanne Calment She is standing in the courtyard of the cloister of Saint Trophime (Arles), in front of the South gallery (see photo), near the number 90 from the cloister map. Source: Photo Gallery of Madame Jeanne-Louise Calment (1875 - 1997)
"We had access to information that only she could know: the names of her mathematics teachers or good ones passed by the building, her daughter could not have known that."
For him, the deception was impossible to implement "notables who go out and attend several clubs reserved for the upper classes of Arles". "Can you imagine the number of people who lied?" Overnight, Fernand Calment would have considered his daughter as his wife and everyone would have remained silent - it's staggering. "
Did the French gouvernment know?
According to Jean-Pierre Daniel, author and specialist of the world of insurance, interviewed by Le Parisien, "Jeanne Calment is not Jeanne Calment".
"The story has turned a little in our midst [insurance, ed]. This kind of fraud is far from rare. The principle of life annuity is that you sign a contract with insurance that blocks a portion of your money in exchange for a pension paid for life. If you die the day after the signing, it is a winner. If you exceed your life expectancy, you are a winner.In these conditions, members of a same family may be tempted to replace themselves to continue to collect the money."
The author claims that the family did not deny this information at the time of the publication of his book, "Insurance and its secrets: all that your insurer has ever told you" (editions François Bourrin) .
A source at the Ministry of Finance - a controller commissioner quoted by the newspaper on condition of anonymity - goes further, estimating that Bercy "saw pass the file" and "turned a blind eye."
"I do not have the memory of a particular order, but neither we nor the insurance have followed up on this story," he says. Monday evening, the Ministry of Finance had not commented on this file.
La preuve par le test ADN
Some scientifics in the community are coming up with the idea of a DNA analysis to know the end of the story.
"The idea of impersonation (of Jeanne Calment by her daughter) had already been considered by the validators and I regularly invited the demographers to keep this hypothesis", according to Nicolas Brouard, director of research at the National Institute demographic studies (INED) in France.
"It's good that Nikolai Zak has conducted independent research and on the same ground of investigation, it's a very good job and an argument for the exhumation of the bodies of Jeanne and Yvonne Calment," he says. to AFP.
Jeanne Calment died on August 4th 1997. (Photo facebook @JeanneCalment) Source: Facebook @JeanneCalment
Already, at the time of his death in 1997, scientists had regretted the absence of autopsy. Contacted by AFP, members of the remote family of Jeanne Calment did not respond.
