BIOGRAPHY

Michel Chevallier was born in the commune of Coulmiers in the Loiret department, Centre-Val de Loire, on 3 July 1908. His earliest childhood memory dates back to the outbreak of World War I in 1914. He grew up on a farm surrounded by cows, sheep, and chickens. At the age of 13, he enrolled in the École Primaire Supérieure in Orléans. At 18, he aspired to become a teacher and began preparing for the École Normale, but he failed the entrance exam twice. Shifting his focus, he turned to the PTT (Postes, Télégraphes et Téléphones). Out of 10,000 candidates who took the exam, he was among the few accepted.

On 16 September 1926, he was assigned his first position as a counter clerk in Paris, where he would spend his entire career at the PTT. In 1935, he married Fernande, a saleswoman at the department stores in Réaumur. They had two children: Roland, born in 1946, and Elisabeth, born in 1948. When World War II broke out, he was mobilized but was captured on 26 June 1940, without having fired a single shot. He spent four years as a prisoner of war in a camp in Czechoslovakia.

Back in Paris, he returned to his life after the war and rebuilt his routine. In their free time, he and his wife enjoyed weekly trips to the movies. They also frequented the theater and the opera. In May 1968, he retired. He was widowed in 2004.

At the age of 109, he reflected on an encounter with a psychiatrist 20 years earlier. The psychiatrist had predicted he would live to be 115. He remarked that he was the only person in his family to have reached the age of 100. For his 110th birthday, Dominique Bavoil, the mayor of Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, along with her deputy, visited him to present a medal from the city. He also received a personalized French football team jersey with his name and the number 110 on it. A passionate football fan, he had played between 1920 and 1926 with friends at the club “Les Morandian de Paris.”

Michel Chevallier passed away in the commune of Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse in the Yvelines department, in the Île-de-France region, on 11 November 2018, at the age of 110 years, 131 days.

RECOGNITION

At the time of his passing, he was the second-oldest living man in France, after Roger Auvin.

His age was validated by the European Supercentenarian Organisation (ESO) on 27 December 2023. The validation is yet to be recognized by LongeviQuest.

ATTRIBUTION

* “Agé de 109 ans, Michel Chevallier, est le vice-doyen des Français” – Actu, 18 October 2017

* “Michel, 110 ans, est le doyen de l’Île-de-France” – Le Parisien, 3 July 2018

GALLERY