Marie-Rose Tessier (née Bousseau; born 21 May 1910) is a French supercentenarian. She is currently the oldest living French person and the second oldest living person in the world.
Biography.
Marie-Rose Henriette Augustine Bousseau was born on 21 May 1910 in Beaurepaire, in the Vendée department in what is now the Pays de la Loire region.
Her father, Alexis Auguste Bousseau (1868–1935), was a farmer and her mother, Marie Ernestine Rose Durand (1876–1962), was a housewife. Her parents married in 1898. Marie-Rose was the youngest of the couple's four children and the only girl. Her grandparents died before she was born.
She married Auguste Charles Tessier (1904–1944) on 14 November 1927 in Ardelay. They had two daughters: Denise Marie Rose Augustine (1928–2020) and Yvette Louise Eugénie (1929–2010).
On 18 April 1944, aged 33, Marie-Rose became a widow after her husband was killed during the Second World War in Aisne, Tergnier.
She lived in Fougères, then in Paris, before returning to her native Vendée when she retired.
Since 2010, she has been living in a nursing home (EHPAD) in Les Sables-d'Olonne.
She became the oldest woman in France following the death of Lucile Randon on 17 January 2023. On 30 April 2025, after the passing of Inah Canabarro Lucas, she became the world’s second oldest living person, born 273 days after Ethel Caterham.