France's oldest woman lives in Latin America

France's oldest woman, who took the title on the death of her predecessor on 12 May, lives in French Guiana and is matriarch to five generations of her family. Eudoxie Baboul's grandson says she has lived to the ag of 113 thanks to a local staple food made from manioc.

Eudoxie Baboul's home town, Sinnamary Public domain

Baboul officially became France's oldest known woman earlier this month when Olympe Amaury died at the age of 114.

Eudoxie was born on 30 September 1901 in Savane Brigandin de Sinnamary in French Guiana, France's only territory in South America and now the only territory on the continent that is not independent.

She has outlived her two daughters, who both died 20 years ago, and has 17 great-grandchildren and a great-great-great-grandson, who is six years old.

Eudoxie Baboul never married and worked as an agricultural labourer and a dressmaker.

She lived in her own home, where she used to put up children who came to Sinnamary to go to school, until she was 109.

Now she lives with her grandson, Joubert, a schoolteacher, who puts her longevity down to couac, a semolina made from manioc flour.

He is the only person who can have a conversation with her these days.

He says he is happy to have her living with him but that for the last 15 years she has been "asking the lord to take her".